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Bankruptcy

Prof. Jason Kilborn

Fall 2009 Syllabus

I.  Course Summary and Class Structure

        This course will introduce you to the law governing the relationships between financially distressed people and businesses (those who owe, “debtors”) and their creditors.  We will discuss what rights debtors and creditors have outside of bankruptcy (under state and federal law) and in which cases bankruptcy is an appropriate option for addressing financial difficulties.  We will focus primarily on the rules in the federal Bankruptcy Code (including the recently adopted reforms of bankruptcy law, the most far-ranging since 1978, which went into effect on October 17, 2005) and their application in regulating the liquidation or reorganization of debtors and their property.  We will become familiar with the language of bankruptcy, including some terms from the law of secured transactions.

        We will spend most of our class time doing what lawyers do--working through problems to see how various rules apply to realistic fact scenarios.  The cases in the book are for illustration only--I will generally NOT discuss them or ask you to discuss them in class.  I will try to limit the length of assignments, and you should be thoroughly prepared to work the problems.  If, for whatever reason, you feel as though you are not able to participate effectively in class discussion, please let me know before class.  You may excuse yourself from class discussion as often as necessary, but keep in mind 1) I will focus on those who have opted out of the previous class discussion in the next class meeting, and 2) your grade may be affected by your performance in class discussion (see below in “Evaluation”).

II.  Course Goals

        The primary goal of this course is to develop in each of you an understanding of federal and state debtor-creditor laws and the Bankruptcy Code, their roles in the federal/state legal system, and their application in analyzing and solving problems of financial distress.  We will also continue to develop the skills that you gained in earlier courses in the interpretation of law contained in a code, including reference to definitional sections, parsing multiple nested subsections of long and complex provisions, and thinking critically about the purposes underlying code sections to resolve policy-laden legal problems.

III.  Required Materials

1)  Warren & Westbrook, The Law of Debtors and Creditors (Aspen:  6th ed. 2009).

2)  The official text of the Bankruptcy Code (I ordered Dahlstrom's inexpensive and compact Bankruptcy Code and Rules for the bookstore, but virtually any 2005 or later edition Commercial Statutes supplement will do, including the one I assign for my courses in Payment Systems and Secured Transactions).

IV.  Evaluation

            You will be evaluated based on a combination of quality of class participation and a final examination.  As mentioned above, class participation is important in this course, and I reserve the right to adjust your final grade up or down by a + or - based on the quality (not necessarily quantity) of your contribution.  You do not necessarily have to announce the correct answer immediately to receive an upward adjustment—concerted and reasoned efforts to grasp the materials, and especially voluntary and well-reasoned responses to questions posed in class, may lead to an upward adjustment.  Extreme absenteeism, frequent requests to be excused from class discussion, and failure to be prepared for the next class after being excused from class discussion, will provide the basis for a downward adjustment.

V.  Suggested Supplemental Reading 

            If you find that you need more explanation of certain topics, I suggest the following three sources of supplemental discussion: 

1. Jeffrey Ferriell & Ted Janger, Understanding Bankruptcy (Matthew Bender: 2d ed. 2007) (a general introduction to bankruptcy law, policy, and history).
2. Douglas G. Baird, Elements of Bankruptcy (Foundation Press:  4th ed. 2006) (broad discussions of general bankruptcy concepts and their rationales).
3. The multi-volume loose-leaf treatise Collier on Bankruptcy (15th ed. rev.), which offers in-depth discussions of bankruptcy law practice and theory.

            If you need a quick little read to relieve you from the tedium of rules and problems, I highly recommend journalist Barbara Ehrenreich's investigative book "Nickel and Dimed:  On (Not) Getting By in America" (2001) about the difficulties that low-wage Americans encounter in attempting to make ends meet.

 VI.  Assignments