bankruptcy court

First female bankruptcy judge focused on opportunity, not adversity

First female bankruptcy judge focused on opportunity, not adversity

Expectations didn’t hold Robyn Moberly back from doing what she wanted.

The recently retired bankruptcy judge for the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana was encouraged to pursue two traditional career paths for women when she entered college in the 1970s.

“I grew up in a different era than today, and most people anticipated that women would become nurses or teachers because it blended so well with having a family. And certainly my parents had that expectation for me, and so they insisted that I major in elementary education,” Moberly said.

She graduated from Indiana University Bloomington in 1975 with a degree in elementary education and economics.

Moberly said she couldn’t really get a job with an economics major without also going to graduate school.

As she was considering graduate school, she was surrounded by high-achieving women in a sorority house.

“Since a lot of the women were going to law school, and many are now physicians, surgeons, I kind of started thinking outside the box, and that’s what pushed me to go to law school, was the women I was around,” Moberly, who received her J.D. from the Robert H. McKinney School of Law in

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July 5, 2024 by ATTORNEY

Giuliani Seeks to Alter Bankruptcy to Speed Asset Sale but Keep Future Income

Rudolph W. Giuliani told a bankruptcy court on Monday that he would like to have his assets sold to pay his creditors, including two Georgia election workers he defamed in his efforts to keep former President Donald J. Trump in office after the 2020 election.

Mr. Giuliani asked the bankruptcy court to convert his case from what is known as Chapter 11 to Chapter 7, which would put an independent trustee in charge of his assets, similar to what the creditors requested.

Mr. Giuliani, who filed for bankruptcy in December, has listed about $11 million in assets, most of which come from two properties he owns in New York and Palm Beach, Fla. In court filings, he has disclosed that he owes about 20 people and businesses about $153 million, including $148 million to the two election workers, Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss.

After months of absent, late and incomplete filings, lawyers for his creditors recently asked the court to hold the former New York City mayor in contempt and to impose penalties. They have previously expressed concerns that he is hiding income. Last month, they asked the court to appoint an independent trustee to take over Mr. Giuliani’s

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July 2, 2024 by ATTORNEY

State attorney general watching St. Pete special needs trust’s bankruptcy, accusations founder took $100M

State attorney general watching St. Pete special needs trust’s bankruptcy, accusations founder took 0M

TAMPA, Fla. – As a federal court appointed a committee of families impacted by the bankruptcy of a special needs trust fund company in St. Petersburg, the Florida Attorney General’s office confirmed it’s keeping an eye on the case.

In a court filing this week, the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Tampa named a creditors committee, tasked with following the Center for Special Needs Trust Administration’s bankruptcy case and representing all the families potentially impacted by the situation.

“It just gives us all of a voice and allows us to represent all of the beneficiaries and give them a voice,” said Carol Mulholland, an Orlando mother who is among those appointed to the committee.

RELATED: St. Pete special needs trust fund founder accused of taking $100M becomes target of lawsuit: Court records

The Florida Attorney General’s office, meanwhile, told FOX 13 in a statement that it is following the case, adding, “we are aware, and the appropriate investigative agencies have been notified. We cannot comment further at this time.”

Several families, including Mulholland’s, have said they’ve contacted the FBI.

Last month, the Center filed for bankruptcy, accusing its founder, Leo Govoni, of taking $100 million in unapproved loans from 2009

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March 7, 2024 by ATTORNEY

As threats against judges soar, some speak out

As threats against judges soar, some speak out

A Greenville, South Carolina, man pleaded guilty on Friday for sending a threatening letter to a federal judge that read, in part, “I have watched you leave the courthouse numerous times and plotted to get my revenge.”

Authorities say the handwritten letter goes on to say, “you best to make sure they lock me away for good cause I’m going to kill you or blow that courthouse up.”

That man, Alvin Parks, was already being held at the Greenville County Detention Center on other charges.

Judge Laura Beyer, who sits on the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Charlotte, North Carolina, told ABC News that the case, while not involving a bankruptcy judge, is a reminder that “these threats are real.”

“I think we all feel pretty protected at the courthouses when we are here, but it’s the unknown threat, when we are away from the federal courthouse,” she said.

The incident, just one of the skyrocketing number of threats to federal judges, underscores just how dangerous the judicial profession has gotten.

The cases before federal bankruptcy court judges, in particular, deal with very personal issues, from divorce proceedings to someone’s business and that could raise someone’s temperature, according to two

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March 2, 2024 by ATTORNEY

Mediation in Bankruptcy: A Glimpse | Fox Rothschild LLP

If you were a party to a lawsuit or a contested matter in a bankruptcy proceeding, would you be interested in working towards settlement with the assistance of an impartial third party, that is, a mediator, rather than take on the significant cost of litigation and going to trial? More and more parties in bankruptcy cases are answering this question with a resounding yes.  See generally, Mediation Matters: The Use of Mediation in Large Chapter 11 Cases (Part I), ABI Journal, August 2023.

It is difficult to track the use of mediation in bankruptcy cases, as participation in mediation may occur informally and/or referral to mediation may not appear on the docket.  Reliance on mediation, at least in chapter 11 cases, appears to have been occurring for decades.  The results of a 2009 survey of bankruptcy judges revealed that “81 percent of judges reported using mediation in their chapter 11 cases in some capacity and plan negotiation was the most common reason for mediation.” Id. (citing Ralph Peeples, “The Uses of Mediation in Chapter 11 Cases,” 17 Am. Bankr. Inst. L. Rev. 401, 406 (2009), available at abi.org/members/member-resources/law-review).

More recently, there is a growing trend of reliance on

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February 23, 2024 by ATTORNEY
December 2024
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