2018

This panel will consider how to plan for and resolve disputes in family businesses/closely held partnerships/limited liability companies when there is a deadlock or unplanned event. What happens when the business is in financial distress, senior management suddenly dies, or ownership/management are in disagreement on the next steps for the business? The panelists will debate from various perspectives how best to navigate the corporate form to keep a good business model as a going concern. Issues may arise when the company’s president dies/walks away without a succession plan. How can the company continue? What about where the entity is a single-purpose one and commencing bankruptcy requires unanimity — are there fiduciary duties to consider? Different factual scenarios will be explored from the perspective of both secured lenders and company counsel, ranging from governance issues to enforcement issues (e.g., no succession plan, deadlocks on voting, no life insurance on president, and lender’s collateral). The panel will focus on considerations on voting, transactional and other governance issues both in and out of court.

Is the legal profession’s vision for the law firm of the future already outdated? Can the law firm of today cope with the incredibly dynamic and changing competitive legal services environment, or will it go the way of the dinosaur? Greater and new competition in the forms of artificial intelligence, disruptive technology, the Big Four accounting firms, enlarged in-house legal staffs, and alternative legal service providers are eating law firms’ lunch. Clients are demanding service, efficiency and transparency in a way that puts tremendous pressure on the traditional law firm model. On top of that, the battle for the best talent is intensifying while the very nature of that talent is transforming as millennials start to dominate the talent pool. Our panel will discuss what a law firm must do to evolve and survive and how it potentially can thrive in a rapidly changing legal market.

Calling all up-and-comers in the bankruptcy industry! Join us for this new, half-day program exclusively for emerging leaders attending the ABI Northeast Conference or Consumer Forum. We invite lawyers, financial advisors, bankers, etc. with less than 10 years of insolvency expertise, either consumer or business focus, to participate in an interactive program involving common insolvency issues facing junior insolvency professionals. Participants will break into small working groups led by emerging leader facilitators and bankruptcy judges to consider issues of substantive law as well as practical procedures for both the courtroom and boardroom. A reception for Emerging Leaders will immediately follow this program.

.video-container { position:relative; padding-bottom:56.25%; padding-top:30px; height:0; overflow:hidden; } .video-container iframe { position:absolute; top:0; left:0; width:99%; height:100%; } Courts wrestle with applying Husky to except from an individual’s discharge creditor claims involving fraud or fraudulent transfers. Some courts carve a narrow path, while others take the opinion at its fullest meaning, suggesting a broad new cause of action for nondischargeability. This is especially true for directors and officers who use their control of nondebtor entities to benefit from fraudulent activity, including actual and constructive fraudulent transfers. Such actions also give rise to related breach of fiduciary duty claims and aiding-and-abetting liability that likewise could prove to be nondischargeable. The panelists will debate claims and defenses based on the evolving case law, and share their views on what lies next.

This panel will review and debate issues regarding the new official form for chapter 13 plans, including how courts are tinkering with Rule 3015.1 — and why courts think they have the ability to do so.

This panel will address various ethical issues including conflicts, chapter 7 bundling and payment arrangements, and chapter 11 retention and fee applications. Learn how to identify potential conflicts, and discover strategies to deal with them. The panel will also discuss the negotiation of fee agreements before and the application for payment of fees during bankruptcy cases.

Join us for a round of the “ABI Talks,” with speakers focusing on the ABI Consumer Commission, litigation finance in bankruptcy, transfers and more.

This panel will discuss pre-petition considerations, disposition of assets and conversion concerns at issue in individual chapter 11 cases.

This panel will focus on numerous chapter 7 issues, such as avoidable transfers, abandonment, exemptions, reopening of cases and asset-protection trusts.