Consumer

Panel will highlight practice risks that include debtor and creditor viewpoints. The topics will include: tracking and anticipating obvious and unknown deadlines, appreciating inherent conflicts that may pose ethical problems as well as critical path obstacles to hidden conflicts of interest, springing conflicts of interest, undisclosed client expectations creating dissatisfaction with the process and outcome, and underestimating expense and delay leading to crisis of payment and inability to effectuate strategy.

The chapter 13 debtor’s plan is expiring, and the trustee issues a notice of final cure payment and completion of plan payments. Your client tells you it’s wrong and says there are uncured pre-petition and post-petition defaults, escrow shortages and unpaid attorney fees. What do you do? This session will cover understanding Federal Rule of Bankruptcy Procedure 3002.1 and Local Bankruptcy Rule 2015-3 (E.D.

This session will focus on debtors’ attorneys’ pre-bankruptcy advice and planning regarding the protection of a debtor’s assets, including maximizing exemptions without getting into trouble, analyzing and counseling the client on the vulnerability of transfers of property that the debtor already made to family members or trusts before seeking your counsel, permissible actions to mitigate liabilities on account of a debtor’s pre-petition transfers, what can legitimately and ethically be done to enable debtors to maximize their exemptions without jeopardizing their discharges, and the use of fam

Lawyers representing mortgage creditors, car creditors and unsecured creditors in consumer chapter 7 and 13 cases are familiar with the routine actions they can take to protect their clients (e.g., move to lift the stay, file proofs of claims and analyze disposable-income issues). But what actions can they take to protect their clients when an individual or small business debtor files chapter 11? What strategies and considerations should secured creditors use to decide whether to move to lift the stay?

This session will use a common fact pattern and feature demonstrations of arguments and examinations regarding such evidentiary issues as whether a witness may appear by telephone, video or deposition; admissibility of expert testimony on value; whether an expert may rely on the testimony of other experts; when lay witness testimony on value may be admissible; and demonstrations of examinations of experts and nonexperts regarding valuation and other common issues that arise in evidentiary hearings.