American Bankruptcy Institute | DIRECTOR'S COLUMN: From the Director

Director's Column

From the Director Written by:
Samuel J. Gerdano
Executive Director

Committees on Investment Banking and E-commerce Bankruptcies Formed

BI President Keith Shapiro (Greenberg Traurig; Chicago) has announced the formation of two important new ABI member committees to meet the information needs of our members. The Investment Banking committee will deal with issues important to this sector of troubled company finance, and will be co-chaired by Peter S. Kaufman (Gordian Group; New York) and Andrew B. Miller (Houlihan, Lokey, Howard & Zukin; Los Angeles). A second new committee will deal with the dynamic issues and problems of Technology Bankruptcies, particularly e-commerce businesses. It will be chaired by Nancy A. Peterman (Greenberg Traurig; Chicago). Both new committees will hold their first meetings during the Annual Spring Meeting in Washington, April 19-22. ABI members are encouraged to share ideas for projects with the chairs of the new committees.

9th Annual Duberstein Competition Set

The annual Judge Conrad B. Duberstein National Moot Court Competition, co-sponsored with St. John's University School of Law, will be held March 24-26 at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York. A total of 23 law school teams from around the country are again competing this year. Last year's winning team was from William & Mary Law School. Judges for the final round this year include Hon. Edith Hollan Jones (5th Cir.), Hon. David R. Hansen (8th Cir.) and Hon. Sidney R. Thomas (9th Cir.), as well as the Chief Bankruptcy Judges of the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York (Judges Stuart Bernstein and Conrad Duberstein) and a former Justice of the New York State Court of Appeals (Hon. Joseph Bellacosa, now Dean at St. John's). The event concludes with an awards dinner for the students and more than 500 New York-area practitioners at Windows on the World in the World Trade Center.

9th Annual Bankruptcy Battleground West to be Held March 16 in Los Angeles

This year's program is titled "Bankruptcy @ E-speed" and focuses on hot issues in emerging areas, such as "dot-com" cases, movie-industry bankruptcies, ADR and dealing with today's breed of workout lender. The program will be held at the Westin Century Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles. Program Coordinators and Co-chairs of the Board of Advisors for the program are Kenneth C. Henry (BDO Seidman) and David McCarty (Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton). The Judicial Chair is Hon. Erithe A. Smith. The program is approved for 6.25 hours of CLE credit and members can register online at ABI World (www.abiworld.org/events/west/). Other members of the Board of Advisors are Lisa Hill Fenning (JAMS), Ron Bender (Levene, Neale, Rankin & Bender), William A. Brandt (Development Specialists Inc.), Peter M. Gihuly (Latham & Watkins), Michael H. Goldstein (Stutman, Treister & Glatt), R. Todd Neilson (Neilson Elggren), Robert W. Pitts (Winthrop Couchot), Prof. Judy Sloan (Southwestern University), Maureen A. Tighe (U.S. Department of Justice), Michael L. Tuchin (Klee, Tuchin, Bogdanoff & Stern), and Richard L. Wynne and Chris Combs (Wynne Spiegel Itkin). Other financial sponsors include Bank of America Business Credit and CIT Business Credit.

ABI Adds New Staff Member

Arzu Bagci joined the ABI staff in December as a Staff Accountant. A native of Turkey, she has a B.S. in physics and a master's degree in international finance management from Istanbul University. In the United States since 1994, she has worked as an office manager for a general contractor, where she handled payroll, accounts payable and receivable and bank reconciliation, among other duties.