Financial Statements: What’s Hiding Beneath the Surface, and Why Does It Matter?
This panel will take a look at financial statement analysis and key ratios, and why they matter in bankruptcy.
Convoluted Pollution: The (Sometimes) Messy Collision of Bankruptcy and Environmental Issues
This panel will discuss Freedom Industries, fracking and other issues.
What’s Yours Might Not Be: Section 541 and Property of the Estate
This panel will cover issues that arise when property of the estate isn’t property of the estate, tax status issues and tax attributes, including NOLs.
Shakedowns vs. The Pursuit of Justice: The Current Landscape of Avoidance Actions
This panel will provide an overview of new uses of cause of action, § 546(e) cases including Lyondell and Tribune, and proposed changes to the UFTA.
The Principles of Compensation: Checking In on the New U.S. Trustee Fee Guidelines
This panel will discuss who can get paid, for what, and why.
Checking In with the Supremes
This panel will review cases from the 2013 and 2014 terms (Bellingham; surcharge case; other bankruptcy cases).
Ethics Issues in Bankruptcy Litigation, Redux: Who’s Suing Whom?
The panel will discuss due diligence requirements before bringing suits, suits or demands made for leverage, asserting claims in excess of estate value, and ethics complaints and litigation advantages.
Sayeth the Lawyer, “I Will Do This, But Not That”: The Ethical Implications of Limited Representation
State courts are increasingly relaxing their rules to allow attorneys to provide a-la-carte services to parties in cases appearing before them. However, bankruptcy courts have been reluctant to do so. Is it because the Bankruptcy Code is so complicated? Or is it because what is good for parties in state court is not good for those in bankruptcy court? This panel of experts will examine whether counsel can provide limited representation services to parties in bankruptcy matters and maintain their ethical obligations to the client.
What Lurks in Them There Cases?
How can you best advise a client who is unsure whether the stay or the discharge applies? How can you protect a debtor’s benefits offered by the automatic stay and the discharge? Stay violation litigation and discharge analysis are just two of the topics that this expert panel will examine.
A Plan to Get Paid: Debtors’ Counsel’s Fees in Chapter 13
Chapter 13 practice is complicated, and the days when a debtor’s 13 plan was quickly confirmed are few and far between. In addition to proposing confirmable chapter 13 plans, debtors’ attorneys (and in some cases chapter 13 trustees) are litigating defective mortgage claims and contentious objections to confirmation. How can debtors’ counsel ensure that they are compensated for these complicated cases that not only sit on the bankruptcy court’s docket, but often end up on appeal? This panel will discuss the challenges and practicalities of compensating chapter 13 debtors’ counsel in this ever-evolving area of bankruptcy law.