On Bankruptcy and Mediation
By: Donald L. Swanson "Chapter 11 plans are inherently suitable for mediation. After all, chapter 11 success is generally defined as a confirmed consensual plan of reorganization, not a contested confirmation battle; that is, it is a settlement, not a victory. " --Hon. Lisa Hill Fenning, retired bankruptcy judge and Partner at Arnold... Continue Reading →
By: Donald L. Swanson Chapter 11 Debtor successfully mediates confirmation disputes with a half-dozen creditors. Now, a hold-out creditor moves for discovery of the mediation communications in an effort to torpedo plan confirmation. The mediating parties come to realize that their Bankruptcy Court has no local rule requiring mediation confidentiality. And, of course, there is... Continue Reading →
By: Donald L. Swanson “The civil Appeals Management Plan (CAMP), now operating in the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, is an innovative set of reforms in the appellate process. . . . This is the first time the [mediation] procedure has been implemented systematically.” --1977 Report of the Federal Judicial Center,... Continue Reading →
By: Donald L. Swanson More than three years of wasted litigation: that’s what it looks like from the outside. The parties had been fighting, in 2012 and early 2013, about a management agreement for operating a casino. But in June of 2013 the fight changes from a dispute over the management agreement to a dispute... Continue Reading →
By: Donald L. Swanson The response of the [American Bar] Association to that 1976 re-examination of Pound’s criticism was immediate . . . One very important program was aimed at developing alternative methods for resolving disputes. --Chief Justice Warren E. Burger, February 12, 1984. Roscoe Pound, a young man from Nebraska in 1906, became... Continue Reading →
By: Donald L. Swanson In days-gone-by, civil lawsuits commonly end in a judgment after trial or an appeal. Today, civil lawsuits commonly end in a mediated settlement. On February 12, 1984, Chief Justice Warren E. Burger explains some early history for such change, to a meeting of the American Bar Association. His speech begins like... Continue Reading →
By: Donald L. Swanson C. Edward Dobbs, Partner at Parker Hudson Rainer & Dobbs, is a leading expert... Continue Reading →
By: Donald L. Swanson Bankruptcy courts have drawn the short mediation straw and are lagging behind: --they don’t have a Federal rule of procedure for mediation. Every other court in the bankruptcy-related court system has such a rule: --The U.S. district courts have Fed.R.Civ.P. 16(c)(2) & 53 [as discussed in this article]. --The U.S. courts... Continue Reading →
By: Donald L. Swanson How can this be?! Federal rules of procedure contain mediation provisions for every bankruptcy-related court, except for the bankruptcy courts themselves. Why this discrimination against bankruptcy courts??!! [By bankruptcy-related courts, I’m referring to: --the bankruptcy courts themselves; --the U.S. district courts, in both their trial and bankruptcy-appeal capacities; --the bankruptcy appellate... Continue Reading →
By Donald L. Swanson The American Bankruptcy Institute and St. John’s University School of Law do an annual forty-hour [yes, that’s 40-hour] “Bankruptcy Mediation Training” course. The next course is coming soon -- it’s scheduled for December 11 – 15, 2016. I took this course two years ago – and loved it! Here are some... Continue Reading →
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