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Presented by ABI’s Secured Credit Committee, this panel will discuss recent trends and developments concerning debtor-in-possession financing by highlighting relevant issues from the debtor’s, lender’s, and creditors’ committee’s perspectives. The discussion will focus on recent chapter 11 cases, including cases from the retail and energy industries, disruption from COVID-19, and broader market observations.

Join the SRS Acquiom team and their panel of experts as they dive into recent transactions involving collateral disputes between lenders and borrowers. The discussion will highlight real-life examples, look back on why the disputes are happening, review the options for lenders, and examine how to prevent disputes from happening in the future.

ABC sponsored this October 22, 2020, session from the Insolvency 2020 Summit. The expert panel addresses the use of technology by bankruptcy professionals inside and outside of the courtroom. The panel materials include applicable Model Rules of Professional Conduct and feature a section on questionable lawyer behavior. The panelists also suggest best practices for fee applications.

Ensuring Conflicts are Transparent in 2020 Hidden conflicts of interest in bankruptcy are a stain on the integrity of the bankruptcy system. What should be done to better police the clear standards of disinterestedness and sanction misconduct? Intersection of Bankruptcy and Social Issues Bankruptcy has been largely been viewed as a solution to solely economic and financial concerns. Historically, scholarship related to bankruptcy’s intersection with social issues has focused on the social problems that may result from bankruptcy or the social issues of which bankruptcy may be a symptom. Over the last several years, however, bankruptcy has been a common thread in some of the largest social movements of our generation. This discussion centers around the intersection of bankruptcy and some of today's social issues, including the “#MeToo” movement, the Catholic Church and Boy Scouts of America abuse scandals, and the racial justice demonstrations regarding housing and policing. The ways in which bankruptcy practitioners and the bench have been asked to craft solutions to address social ills will be explored within the framework of the Bankruptcy Code, as well as the ways in which bankruptcy will continue to play a part in addressing social issues. Lasting Impacts of COVID-19 on Law Firm Operations and Legal Service Delivery No business or industry has escaped the impacts of COVID-19. In this session, seasoned bankruptcy attorney and law firm Chairman Robert Sartin will discuss how the modern global pandemic has changed the future of law firm operations. He’ll also examine the challenges of leading in a fluid and unprecedented environment, and review what many firm leaders are predicting as the new landscape of practicing law and delivering legal services.

With courthouses shutting their doors due to COVID-19, trials across the country have been put in an indefinite holding pattern. Certain state and federal courts, bar organizations and private groups have begun pilot-testing courtroom innovations, procedural reforms and presentation technologies to convert jury and bench trials into an online format. This session will address the bench's and bar’s current conversation on if, how and when to conduct trials online. Particular emphasis will be paid to testimonial, documentary and legal decision-making issues germane to bankruptcy trials.

You learned about it in law school, but have never seen it since. In light of the COVID-19 effects on business operations, this panel will discuss the general applicability of force majeure provisions in contracts, how they excuse or suspend performance, and exceptions to a boilerplate contract provision that we rarely see enforced until recently. The panel will also discuss business interruption insurance in the context of the Pandemic.

Shutdown orders, shuttered industries and an uncertain future due to COVID-19 have left many municipalities with a diminishing revenue base and significantly increasing costs as they strive to protect the health and safety of their residents. The era of COVID-19 is also the era of protests and renewed demands for racial justice in small and larger cities, historic wildfires and weather events due to climate change, and economic-relief packages in Congress at a stalemate as we approach the November election. This panel will consider the potential impacts of these overlapping events on the financial future of our municipalities. Taking into account the lessons learned from Detroit, Puerto Rico and other municipal insolvencies, this expert panel will consider the hard questions facing community leaders, the municipal debt market, public service employees and retirees, private businesses and citizens, and potentially the courts in this unprecedented time.

Most office employees have been working from home throughout the pandemic, and businesses are increasingly realizing that office space is not as essential as once thought. In addition, retailers are closing their doors permanently or shifting exclusively to online sales. Can corporate real estate survive or reinvent itself?