Round-Up: Insolvency in the News
Here are bankruptcy stories from around the web making headlines on 8.26.11:
The Nashville Business Journal provides a sobering update of the Tennessee housing market.
Reuters reports that Lehman Bros. executives have agreed to settle shareholder investment suits for $90 million.
WSJ Bankruptcy Beat: Oregon Newspaper files Chapter 11, but not without a fight; paper goes down swinging against its largest creditor.
Too big to fail? Denmark enacts plan to protect banks from bankruptcy.
And on a historical note, the State of Indiana apparently went bankrupt in 1839. Unless you’re from Indiana, in which case the situation is considered a mere brief unpleasantness.
By American Inns of Court: A Valuable Tradition
One of the most rewarding experiences I’ve had as a lawyer in recent years has been my membership in the Harry Phillips American Inn of Court. The Inn provides lawyers with the opportunity to meet, share meals, and work side-by-side with judges, community leaders, and well-respected lawyers across town. Attendance at the Inn’s monthly programs supplies nearly all the CLE credit needed in a year. More than that, I have been pleased to find that the Inn not only seeks to better its members, but seeks strategic ways to better the legal community at large as well.
American Inns of Court are patterned after the English Inns of Court that date back to the 13th century. Those inns emphasized the value of learning the lawyering craft from those already established in the profession in a collegial environment that nurtured professional ideals and ethics. In 1977, after a visit to England, Chief Justice Warren E. Burger sought to establish a similar society in this country. The result, the American Inns of Court, was inaugurated to “foster excellence in professionalism, ethics, civility, and legal skills for judges, lawyers, academicians, and students of the law in order to perfect the quality, availability and efficiency of justice in the United States.”
Nashville now has two Inns of Court. The Harry Phillips AIC was formed in 1990. This year, the Belmont University College of Law AIC is being chartered. If you have any interest in joining either Inn, I encourage you to do so. (If you live outside the Nashville area, go to the Inns of Court website and locate an Inn near you.) Contact a current member, let them know of your interest, and ask them to nominate you for membership. If you do, I believe you will find the experience a rewarding one — both personally and professionally.
Round-Up: Stern v. Marshall
It’s been nearly two months since the Supreme Court released it’s “bombshell” decision in Stern v. Marshall, which held that bankruptcy courts may not issue final judgments for certain claims traditionally reserved for state or federal district courts. Although the scope of the decision’s impact is still being sorted out, here’s a round-up of recent commentary on the case:
SCOTUSblog’s very comprehensive coverage includes analysis, oral argument recap, merits and amicus briefs, and the opinion and briefs from below.
Our firm’s take, focusing on the impact of the case for litigators is here.
Businessweek notes that arguments over Stern are already hot and heavy in the Lehman Bros. bankruptcy.
Bankruptcy Beat highlights a recent ABI poll showing that 46% of respondents agree (and 46% disagree) with the Court’s decision.
Stern may also have an impact beyond the bankruptcy realm. Credit Slips focuses on how the decision might impact judicial deference to agency expertise.
Getting Things Done
This weekend, I picked up a copy of Getting Things Done by David Allen, according to TIME magazine, the defining self-help business book of the time. The book has a simple premise: a person’s productivity is directly proportionate to his or her ability to relax. Only when our minds are clear will we achieve the most effective results. According to Mr. Allen, the best way to clear your mind is to capture all the things that need to get done — now, later, big, little, at work, and at home — by writing them down in a system that you trust. He then encourages readers to make front-end decisions about each of these items: if it can be done in less than 2 minutes, go ahead and do it now; if not, write down the very next action that needs to be taken in a list (one of several) that you review regularly.
The book’s premise has held true in my experience: if I write something down, be it a simple to-do list, a project plan, or litigation timeline, it does tend to free my mind and allow me to think about it only when I want to. At the same time some of Mr. Allen’s advice seems slightly impractical — he advocates keeping a set of 4 or 5 lists, which are no doubt useful but look like a pain to maintain. Also, the idea of setting aside two days to capture every task in one’s life seems unlikely to happen for most. That said, I found in the book dozens of useful insights that both validate my current practices and that I plan to implement to increase my own productivity. I think both lawyers and business professionals alike could benefit from Getting Things Done.
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