00:00:00.449 - 00:00:18.610

So, well, thank you for doing this. The NCBJ has been collecting videos of oral histories basically of a lot of the retired judges, especially those judges who were presidents of NCBJ, and you fit that category both ways. So why don't you tell me

00:00:18.610 - 00:00:36.990

a little bit about what you did prior to becoming a bankruptcy judge? I was a lawyer at Jenner and Block for 12 years before I became a bankruptcy judge, associate and partner, and what I did was general litigation. And I was very fortunate

00:00:36.990 - 00:00:58.490

to get any number of very interesting cases, including the Morton Grove gun control litigation that ultimately went to the Supreme Court and [inaudible] could have gone to the Supreme Court at a time when I think the Supreme Court would have approved the

00:00:58.490 - 00:01:22.750

regulation that would put into effect. Unfortunately, I had to write an opposition to certiorari and unfortunately, Cert was denied. So, that opportunity was lost. I also had the opportunity to represent an individual client who had a problem with his farmland. It was claimed to

00:01:22.750 - 00:01:43.309

be encumbered by a public right of way that had been abandoned decades before, but according to this plaintiff, still available to him to drive through my clients' cornfields. That went to the Illinois Supreme Court and I got to argue there as well. So a lot of

00:01:43.309 - 00:02:04.580

fun. And then I had pro bono cases, including a woman charged with murder for starving her baby to death. And that case ultimately was retried after a jury hung. I got to give the closing argument to that jury. There's a wonderful story about how the juror

00:02:04.580 - 00:02:22.389

got on the panel despite being Black at the time, when being Black generally caused one to be excused from a jury. He was a factory foreman from Jamaica, and they thought he would not sympathize with my client as he was an inner city poor platform and

00:02:22.389 - 00:02:40.490

not mentally retarded. But he accepted our argument and held strong on it. I have the greatest, greatest respect for that. So what made you want to become a bankruptcy judge, or did, I mean, I assume you wanted to become a judge at some point. I definitely

00:02:40.490 - 00:02:58.490

wanted to be a judge. Bankruptcy judge, even the farthest and through my mind, as I said, I've done general litigation. And a weird thing happened. I was, I was standing in the back of a very crowded courtroom in the Daily Center in Chicago State Court,

00:02:59.619 - 00:03:16.419

to put a motion to call, and there was a judge the front presiding over this huge motion to call. And I thought I could do that. I don't know where that idea came from, but it really stuck with me, and I decided to pursue it.

00:03:16.839 - 00:03:33.559

Now the way to pursue it was to become an associate judge of the Circuit Court of Cook County. The associate judges, as you well know, are not elected by the people at large. They're elected by the sitting circuit judges who are elected by the people at

00:03:33.559 - 00:03:54.970

large. And to get elected to that position by the circuit judges, you have to be nominated. Then I put in my application and to my surprise, I was nominated. That called on me to talk to each one of the sitting circuit judges and ask them for

00:03:54.970 - 00:04:17.510

their support. Unfortunately for me at that time there was something called the Solovy Commission provided by Jerold Solovy of general law, to investigate corruption in the circuit court of Cook county that ultimately led to the Greylord indictments and the removal of a number of circuit

00:04:17.510 - 00:04:36.079

court judges for accepting bribes. So when I interviewed the circuit court coming from Jenner Block, I was there, so you want to reform the court. I said, no, I just want to be a judge. They did not accept that by and large, and I lost that election,

00:04:36.190 - 00:04:54.750

but I was encouraged to try again. Now to try again. I asked partners of my firm who might know circuit court judges to help me out, talk to their friends on the circuit court and do a little bit of politicking on my behalf. And when I

00:04:54.750 - 00:05:12.959

talked to the partners who were members of the commercial department, which was, they said to me, You want to be a judge. You ought to apply to bankruptcy court, to which I responded, I don't know anything about bankruptcy. They said, You're a litigator. You learn new

00:05:12.959 - 00:05:30.660

substantive law all the time. You can learn enough bankruptcy to be an effective judge. And I thought, well, Let me take a look at it, and it turned out the application form for being a bankruptcy judge was identical to a form I filled out to be

00:05:30.660 - 00:05:51.029

screened by the Chicago Bar Association. So I gave my secretary the old form that I filled out for the CBA. I told her to fill out this new form for bankruptcy court application. She did, and I turned it in the last day you could apply for

00:05:51.029 - 00:06:15.899

bankruptcy judge. And then to my amazement, I get a letter from the circuit executive council's patron telling me that if I'm selected for interviews, it'll be the next week, and I'm thinking, This is better. Pursued far enough. I cannot submit to an interview where they

00:06:15.899 - 00:06:33.019

ask me some question about the meanings of Section 727, and I have no idea what they're talking about. So I wrote a letter to Councilman Fitzpatrick saying, please withdraw my name from consideration. I'm applying to be a state court judge. I think that's where I can best

00:06:33.019 - 00:06:53.059

serve. And again to my amazement, I get a telephone call from Collins Fitzpatrick. Telling me that he'd read my letter, but he had a question for me. If I didn't get the state court's job, would I consider bankruptcy? I said, well, of course I considered it,

00:06:53.140 - 00:07:08.940

but I don't know anything about it. And his response to that was, if you don't know anything about bankruptcy, maybe you want to go to an interview and you'll find out something about it. I said, OK, if you're willing to talk to me, even though I

00:07:08.940 - 00:07:25.369

don't know a thing about the subject that I'm supposed to be judging, I'll be happy to talk to you. And I did. I had a very pleasant interview. I did, in fact, learn something about it. And more importantly, When I was in fact chosen to be

00:07:25.369 - 00:07:44.630

a bankruptcy judge, I got a phone call from Jim Schwartz, who was the chief judge in the bankruptcy court, inviting me to lunch, and we had the most wonderful, friendly, down to earth lunches. He gives me his views on the relative merits of bankruptcy court versus

00:07:45.570 - 00:08:02.730

state court and told me I was coming to the right place. So, coming in there without knowing, how did you, I mean, I assume that you knew how to try a case and you could probably handle adversary proceedings just fine, but you had a huge commercial call.

00:08:02.850 - 00:08:19.600

How did you, how did you even learn that? I mean, to, to get up to speed, to handle the 13, you know, Chapter 13 kills and those, I think, I think that's a hard thing to do. Well, let me tell you about my first. Well, first

00:08:19.600 - 00:08:43.409

question, back up. I took a course in bankruptcy, so I. And it was a weeklong that was at Stanford University. It was taught by some of the most brilliant people in the bankruptcy community, so that was helpful and that particularly helped in getting some overall framework

00:08:43.409 - 00:09:04.549

of what bankruptcy law was set up to do. But then for my first court call, I got a stack of papers and I read them. And you won't be surprised. One of the first things I saw was motion for relief from the automatic stay, Section 362 of

00:09:04.549 - 00:09:19.770

the bankruptcy code. So I looked that up and read what it said and read what the grounds were for relief from the automatic stay and thought I had some idea of what was happening with the motion that I was going to get, but that's the sort

00:09:19.770 - 00:09:33.429

of thing that was going on, and I had a law clerk who had served as a law clerk for a bankruptcy judge before they came, so she had some idea about what was going on with my motion call, and I could talk to her about it.

00:09:34.210 - 00:09:53.469

But to answer your question, how did I learn this stuff, the lawyers taught me. Because we did have in those days at least court hearings on every matter, and when I would raise an eyebrow about something they would say, they would explain that they were very

00:09:53.469 - 00:10:11.690

gracious about that. It was extraordinarily helpful. So let me give you an example. I'm in Chapter 13, and there's a motion for dismissal. On the ground, the debtor has not relief from the others on the ground that the debtor hasn't made payments under a mortgage. And

00:10:11.690 - 00:10:26.270

so I thought grant relief from the stay and let the mortgage be foreclosing. The debtor's attorney says, yes, the debtors falling behind on the payments, but that was because she was laid off from her job. She has a new job now, so she's going to be

00:10:26.270 - 00:10:47.229

able to make payments in the future. Just give us a few weeks. And the creditor's attorney says, look, she's had all this time. She hasn't made her payments. We need relief from the automatic stay before we get even deeper in underwater. What do I do? One

00:10:47.229 - 00:11:03.609

of the lawyers, I don't know if it's the creditor or the debtor's lawyer at this point, but one of the lawyers says well judge. One of the things you could do would be to enter an order granting the relief with an effective date in the future.

00:11:03.630 - 00:11:21.929

And then if the debtor is able to make mortgage payments, the debtor can come in, ask that your order be vacated, and the other things taken to you. Wow, what a great idea. And so that's what I did. And then that became something that I could do

00:11:21.929 - 00:11:38.609

in the future in a situation like that. And in many ways like that, lawyers helped me by making arguments, pointing out possibilities that would not have occurred to me. So you know, thinking back on the cases you've had, I know that you had the United case.

00:11:38.809 - 00:11:53.450

Are there, was that the most memorable case, or do you have other cases that you think? You know, I think back, I don't know, fondly, or at least they were really challenging. I know I have to believe the United case was pretty challenging. Well, it was

00:11:53.450 - 00:12:15.119

in many different respects because any number of disputes arose at United that I had to decide. But the most important thing about United was the disputes that I did not have to decide because the lawyers were able to work things out. And that's something that I told

00:12:15.119 - 00:12:33.659

them in United from the very beginning. When I'm presented with a dispute, I generally can only rule 100% 1 way or 100% the other way, but they have so many steps in between for resolving the dispute that it would be far better to go that way.

00:12:34.299 - 00:12:56.700

Now I can tell you about one dispute that particularly sticks in my memory because it had to do with the question of whether there were grounds for challenging action of a group of creditors who had loans secured by United's aircraft. What that group had

00:12:56.890 - 00:13:21.039

done or alleged to have done was price fixing. They had a lawyer who represented the entire group, and the entire group gave notice to United that they were terminating United's leases of the aircraft and secured their indebtedness unless you know they agreed to make larger payments,

00:13:21.429 - 00:13:49.359

and this was just before Christmas, right, so it would have been deadly to that period of time, as United have not agreed to what the aircraft lenders requested. The aircraft lenders were attacked given an adversary claiming that their action was a price fixing conspiracy. And I

00:13:49.359 - 00:14:20.640

granted a temporary injunction. To allow for them to preserve their material and that injunction got them through the holiday period. I was met with a mandamus saying that I had acted improperly in granting the injunction, and the Seventh Circuit sustained that mandamus and ordered

00:14:20.640 - 00:14:42.010

me to dismiss the case. I felt that was entirely inappropriate because even if the injunction were improperly mandated the merits of the case, it's still there, the temporary restraining order could be dissolved and the case would still be there and discovery would be appropriate in a

00:14:42.010 - 00:15:05.900

state of decline. No. The mandamus said that I have to dismiss the case. I thought that was entirely bull. And so the question for me is, do I swallow my pride and dismiss the adversary, or do I decline to do that, allow myself to

00:15:05.900 - 00:15:28.369

be held in contempt, and lay test the appropriateness of the Seventh Circuit's ruling through a contempt proceeding. Well, I decided that the best thing to do was to dismiss the adversary. And that was hard if you went against him my gut feeling, but talking or thinking

00:15:28.369 - 00:15:46.650

about the overall process of the case, it was much better to let the case go forward and not let my personal feelings be a distraction. I still think looking back on it that was the right thing to do, it wasn't wasn't easy. Yeah, I think that

00:15:46.650 - 00:16:02.109

would be pretty tough. So during that time you served as a bankruptcy judge, I know you were on the rules committee and other committees, I think, talk a little bit about being on the rules committee. I think that's It's such an important part of how this

00:16:02.109 - 00:16:24.109

whole thing operates. It's a bankruptcy court nationally. And then again I, I'd say was a high point. My career I was very fortunate to be appointed to the Rules Committee and very fortunate to be asked to head the Rules Committee during a time when that

00:16:24.109 - 00:16:41.469

was being put into effect. So there are two aspects of it that I think were very important. The first was that I was on the consumer bankruptcy committee at a time when he had to put that seat that

00:16:41.469 - 00:17:02.630

that we had to draw up the forms that were in [inaudible], among other things, the means test to be implanted, a very complicated test and very difficult to put into a meaningful feeling. There were members of the committee who felt that we were being too anti-debtor

00:17:02.820 - 00:17:21.839

in the way we drew up the bank, but from my point of view, what we had to do as our initial burden was to implement what Congress had done, and Congress was not very friendly to debtors in that modification of the bankruptcy code. So, the

00:17:21.839 - 00:17:42.920

majority of the committee decided to go along with the forms that we had put together, but it was hard. And to just give you one example. How do you count income of a debtor from a business that the debtor was running? So it's still hard. Well,

00:17:43.000 - 00:18:04.645

it is hard because do you count the cost of doing business against the income, or do you take the gross income and determine. whether the debtor is immune from the means test earlier. Well, what the means test formed was that it did tell debtors to put

00:18:04.645 - 00:18:25.469

the gross amount of their self-employment income, which could have caused enormous difficulty. That draft went out for comment, and one of the comments that I got said, you're wrong about that. You need to count only their net income, and I looked into it and thought I

00:18:25.469 - 00:18:46.390

ultimately persuaded the committee that that was correct and that we ought to adopt a form that only asked for net income from self-employment, and that was accepted, but it, it could be challenged and was challenged by the US Trustee's Office at that point. Thinking that

00:18:46.390 - 00:19:04.959

we had made a mistake in interpreting the law, as far as I know, that's still the interpretation of the law reflected in those forms. So that, that was part of the overall difficult chapter that we were faced with. Now the next thing that came up. Tenure

00:19:04.959 - 00:19:27.410

in the Rules Committee was a model 13 film to be planned for, to be used throughout the country, which the committee felt would very much improve the operation of Chapter 13 because we get uniform interpretations of the uniform document. It also got enormous resistance from judges all

00:19:27.410 - 00:19:46.229

over the country who were used to having their own thought and wanted to be able to keep their own thought. In the end, I had to make another one of these decisions. Do I go along with the proposed compromise which would adopt aspects of reform plan

00:19:46.969 - 00:20:07.630

without adopting the entire form and again with some difficulty, I decided that it would be best to go with the compromise. The compromise was adopted and it still would be up to the rules committee for the future I think completely uniform forms would be the best

00:20:07.630 - 00:20:27.540

way to go. That's an option. But meanwhile, at least we moved in the direction of getting with them. So, I just want to talk a little bit about your experience with NCBJ and you know, membership and ultimately be president and what, 10 years ago, no more

00:20:27.540 - 00:20:45.619

than that when it happened here in Chicago, but just if you would tell me a little bit about Your views on NCBJ and how you know, how you looked at it. Well, NCBJ was the first organization that I joined, and I joined it again with the

00:20:45.619 - 00:21:06.810

help of Chad Schwartz. He very much believed in the NCBJ. He took me to one of my first annual meetings of the NCBJ in New Orleans and we had a wonderful time. We walked the streets, and he took me into a jazz club and I'm

00:21:06.810 - 00:21:28.989

just great, but that was his influence on me. Now, once I joined, I was asked to become an associate editor of the American Law Journal. And I did and that was again a great experience. I got to meet with the authors, and work with them in

00:21:28.989 - 00:21:49.170

making a better product that they were being published by the Law Journal. Could not have enjoyed it more. After doing that though for the time that I did and realizing how much time it was taking away from my decision making, I decided to give up

00:21:49.170 - 00:22:11.270

that job, but it got me involved in the operations of the NCBJ. Eventually I became a member of the executive committee, and I enjoyed that very much as well. And seeing the way the operation worked and and again the experience of being the chief judge here,

00:22:11.510 - 00:22:33.069

I thought I could be of assistance to the NCBJ if I became president, and ultimately that was and that also an amazingly good experience. One of the benefits of that experience, which Janet Baer has shared, is being president of the NCBJ when the annual meeting is

00:22:33.069 - 00:22:56.410

in Chicago. And our annual meeting for my year could not have gone better. We had beautiful weather. We had enormous support from the bankruptcy community here. We had our judges dinner at the old Chicago Public Library, now the Cultural Center. Oh, it was spectacular. We had,

00:22:56.530 - 00:23:19.270

food catered in, by a Greek restaurateur. The Greek food was phenomenal, very different from what people were used to, but everybody liked it very much. We had the, uh, Open house for everyone the next day at the Art Institute of Chicago. And again, it

00:23:19.270 - 00:23:36.380

could not have had been a more pleasant experience for everyone involved. And then we had the final night dinner. And with entertainment by Second City. So it, it was when the NCBJ had a lot of money. It did, and, we had

00:23:36.380 - 00:23:53.739

an annual meeting that did not detract from the surplus. The annual meeting itself made money. So I was very, very happy by all of that. Now the other thing that happened though when I was president was a benefit for me that had nothing to do

00:23:53.739 - 00:24:19.430

with me. And that is the litigation that the Article III judges have started to get back pay succeeded. Now I'm sure most people listening to this will know about this, but the Constitution provides that the salaries of Article III judges should not be diminished, and the

00:24:19.430 - 00:24:41.939

argument in the litigation was that the salaries had been diminished by failure to supply the judges with cost of living increases. Whenever inflation went up, effectively, the judges' salaries went down because they were the same level. Well, that litigation was successful. We had filed with Barbara Houser as

00:24:41.939 - 00:25:06.380

plaintiff our own cause of action saying that if the bankruptcy judges did not get 92% of what was determined to be proper salary of the Article III judges that we were in violation of our statute which gave us 92% of what the district judges got and

00:25:06.380 - 00:25:29.709

that was also successful. That judgment came down by virtue of the administrative office deciding not to take an appeal. That decision came down while I was president, so I had the privilege of telling all live fellow bankruptcy judges your salary is going up to what would

00:25:29.709 - 00:25:52.290

have been its level during the time that the district judges did not get their cost of living increases. You'll get back pay for your 92% of that difference, and you'll get 92% with the cost of living increases going. So a wonderfully happy day for bankruptcy judges during

00:25:52.290 - 00:26:14.030

my tenure as president, having nothing to do with me. Well, the NCBJ is terrifically important to bankruptcy judges. No kidding, no one's arguing it. No kidding. I know you were also very involved with the ABI and you became president of it after retiring as a judge and might talk a

00:26:14.030 - 00:26:33.939

little bit about the importance of ABI in terms of our insolvency community. But one of the interesting things that debate was there at the ABI is that it took me quite a while to join it. I, I didn't. I had some discomfort and I'm not even

00:26:33.939 - 00:27:00.479

sure why, but eventually, ABI asked me to do analysis of the legislation that became BAPCPA, and I was happy to do that. And in doing it, I found out how really problematic many aspects of this legislation would be. And eventually Todd Small and I put

00:27:00.479 - 00:27:24.959

together a proposal for Congress to ameliorate some of the problems that we saw, and it resulted in us going to Capitol Hill and talking to senators, congressmen about the legislation and getting absolutely nowhere, but it was worth the effort, and it put me in a position to

00:27:24.959 - 00:27:51.010

think that we could do better than this legislation. And so while I was president of ABI, I put together a commission that would parallel what the Chapter 11 Commission of ABI had done in making concrete proposals for improving the bankruptcy system. And drawing from the diverse

00:27:51.010 - 00:28:10.130

membership of ABI, so we get federal representatives as well as people who generally represented debtors and academics and a really good range of people to come up with these proposals, and I'm really proud of the work that we did and the commissioning reports that we gave.

00:28:10.209 - 00:28:33.280

I know that they can do for a better bankruptcy regislation than what we had. So in contrast to my NCBJ presidency where I didn't try anything quite that big, this was a big deal, I thought. Now has it been adopted? Well, to some extent the recommendations

00:28:33.280 - 00:28:49.500

were for decisions by judges. On the existing law, to some extent there are changes that could be implemented by a rule committee changes, and to some extent they were required extra but Congress which hasn't happened. But on the whole, I think it's a very worthwile correction.

00:28:51.869 - 00:29:12.160

So since you've retired, you've been doing pro bono work. Which I think has been very important, winning some, losing some, which is par for the course. Well, actually, I've, I've got an article that you could attach to this. A recording if you'd like to

00:29:12.439 - 00:29:30.089

that goes through all the cases that I've worked on it and I come up with about a .500 batting average, which I think is not bad given that I would expect that most consumer cases on appeal are not terribly successful. But I should back up a

00:29:30.089 - 00:29:52.489

little because in deciding to retire from bankruptcy, judging, one of the real reasons was to enable me to do pro bono bankruptcy appeals because I'd had the experience many times in ruling in favor of a debtor. The debtor having that ruling appealed and the debtor unable

00:29:52.489 - 00:30:10.770

to get effective representation and it's obvious why that would happen. The debtor has spent whatever resources they have to hire an attorney to hire their bankruptcy attorney. Hiring an appellate attorney is going to be much more expensive than hiring a bankruptcy attorney, and they're not going

00:30:10.770 - 00:30:28.780

to have money. So unless they can find a legal aid office that would be willing to represent them, they're not going to be able to pursue a representation in the appeal. They're not going to have a lawyer who can handle the creditors appeal. I thought

00:30:28.780 - 00:30:47.630

that's really not a good situation, particularly just on a personal level. I put a lot of effort into deciding that the debtor's right on this, and it would be good if that decision could have some effect later on. If it's reversed, it has no effect. So I thought

00:30:47.630 - 00:31:03.510

let's let them have representation if it's a worthwhile cause, and that's what I did for 10 years. I have to ask you about one case which is dear to my heart, which is the Fulton case, because Mr. Pete, the debtor in front of me, was part

00:31:03.510 - 00:31:25.500

of that case. And he took that case on all the way up to the Supreme Court. Pretty much by myself at the Supreme Court level. My friends at Jenner Block, Kathy Skinneke in particular, came to my aid, and we proposed a joint objection to the

00:31:25.599 - 00:31:45.790

appeal that was taken. We won. Brilliantly in the Supreme and the Circuit, that was before Kathy judged me, but before the Supreme Court, we lost and we lost 8 to 0. And I think the Supreme Court was mistaken. The question is an interpretation of the petition

00:31:45.790 - 00:32:04.869

in the automatic stay that I think in that, well, first of all, we have to back up a little bit. What are we talking about? The city of Chicago enacted an ordinance that allowed them to seize the car of any debtor who could not pay

00:32:04.869 - 00:32:28.969

parking tickets. So that's basically what we're talking about seizure of a debtor's automobile for not paying parking tickets and then requiring the debtor to pay the parking tickets plus interest plus the fees incurred by the city for removing the car and storing it. If the debtor

00:32:28.969 - 00:32:51.020

had taken to court and convinced, this caused debtors to file Chapter 13 cases with the extent, as the court was then interpreting it, would say that the city's retention of the vehicles while the case was pending violated the evidence. We believe that that was correct because

00:32:51.020 - 00:33:10.089

it was action by the city to exercise control over the debtor's property. Property of the estate was Chapter 13. And as I said, the 7th Circuit accepted that argument. The Supreme Court rejected it. It's simply a question of the interpretation of the statute. For the Supreme

00:33:10.089 - 00:33:34.119

Court, it's argued by the city, exercising control does not include holding on to collateral while the case is pending. So be it. Now, you may know that I have another case that's cert this time we're seeking certiorari from the Supreme Court. And the question is

00:33:34.119 - 00:33:55.280

a different one. It has to do with the amount of the tax benefit. The debtor in this in this case is claiming that the bankruptcy court has the authority, the jurisdiction to determine the amount of the tax mounted both because Section 505A1 of the bankruptcy code

00:33:55.280 - 00:34:14.979

expressly conveys that authority. And because this is anonymous charitable debt and all of the circuits that have ruled on the authority of a bankruptcy court to determine the amount of anonymous charitable debt of the first jurisdiction, so we have two bases for jurisdiction. Both of them

00:34:14.979 - 00:34:34.550

are subject to circuit splits. Eight circuit courts that have ruled on 505A1 to know that it's a granted jurisdiction. Five circuit courts that have ruled on the question of jurisdiction to determine the amount of that is charitable debt have ruled that there is such jurisdiction. The

00:34:34.550 - 00:34:53.280

Seventh Circuit conflicts with as it goes. So we've just filed a reply brief in support of certiora. The case is supposed to be before the court on the 12th of December, 5th of December. That's a conference for their first conference. They can deny cert. They can grant cert.

00:34:53.360 - 00:35:09.439

They can kick it to a later date. We'll see what happens. So looking back, there are other things you'd like to share that you'll be here at the, on a, you know, Penn's library in terms of thinking about being a bankruptcy judge, about the insolvency community,

00:35:10.179 - 00:35:32.750

ABI, the NCBJ, done things we'd like to share. Well, let me just share an overall view. If you remember, I got into this thinking I have no business being in bankruptcy, and certainly not being a bankruptcy judge. It has been the most rewarding thing that I

00:35:32.750 - 00:35:53.939

could possibly have done [with my career]. And part of that has to do with the nature of bankruptcy. We're dealing in bankruptcy with individuals and corporations that are in real financial jeopardy. We're dealing with creditors who are not likely to be paid, and we're

00:35:53.939 - 00:36:16.340

trying to make the best of a bad situation. And what is so heartening is that bankruptcy is very often capable to do that. So you mentioned on United Airlines. United Airlines headquartered in Chicago, had tens of thousands of employees, any number of suppliers who were

00:36:16.340 - 00:36:39.280

benefiting from them being in business. Had they been liquidated as other bankruptcies were in hand, TWA. That would have been an enormous loss to our community. And through the bankruptcy system, they were able to maintain their business and even grow. On the individual level, we

00:36:39.280 - 00:37:02.310

have people who have made real sacrifices to support their families, and they're in danger of being unable to support their families, being forced out of their homes into very uncertain situations. Bankruptcy very often is able to help them. My participating in the bankruptcy system has given

00:37:02.649 - 00:37:16.530

my practice of law meaning. That's the thing that I would offer to anybody who's thinking of being a bankruptcy practitioner or a bankruptcy judge. Well, thank you.