Congress moved quickly to enact legislation authorizing federal courts, including bankruptcy courts, to hold court sessions outside their usual places of business. The law is called the Federal Judiciary Emergency Special Sessions Act of 20…

When can debtors avoid judicial liens impairing their bankruptcy exemptions in a homestead? Does state law have an effect? Does it make a difference when the debtor acquired an interest in the property? These and other questions were thorou…

The road through the briar patch of financial troubles has, in many jurisdictions, always passed by a homestead. Prudent debtors have normally taken advantage of the ability to shelter both their estates and their families in the homestead.…

One of the most frequently asked questions by persons ensnared in a bankruptcy for the first time is the bankruptcy's effect on a creditor's right to pursue a claim against the debtor. Often overlooked by debtors and creditors alike, 11 U.S…

The Fourth Circuit was right on target last year when it held that C1322(c)(2) does not permit the bifurcation of an undersecured claim into separate secured and unsecured claims, as several bankruptcy courts had held. Witt v. United Compan…

It is not unusual for consumer debtors to have borrowed from a qualified retirement or savings plan pre-petition to meet cash needs. Typically the debtor schedules the plan as a creditor with a claim in the amount of the outstanding balance…

First and foremost, bankruptcy is about people—people who have problems. They look to their lawyers and to the court for a solution to those problems. More than 95 percent of all bankruptcy cases involve consumers, not businesses or corpora…

Editor's Note: Part II of this article will be published in the March 1999 ABI Journal. One of the more interesting interactions between the Bankruptcy Code and the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) is the treatment of the reclaiming seller. Ba…

As H.R. 975, the "Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2003" (the Act), inches toward almost inevitable enactment, two questions are on the minds of many bankruptcy professionals. First, why single out consumer debtors…

The most embattled creditor in the consumer bankruptcy arena in recent years has been Sears Roebuck and Co. 1 In the following cases, Sears again finds itself at center stage in a consumer bankruptcy controversy. This time, the controversy …