BankruptcyBill.us

CLICK HERE to make a donation via PayPal for Strip #17

It’s time to boldly go where no bankruptcy cartoon has ever gone before.  To find out exactly what that means, we need your support to enable us to publish Strip #17 – BAPCPA Man.

Update 06/29/09: Still at $224.  Things may continue to be on hold for a little while as Bill and Struck both put in for vacation from June 30 through July 9 so they can travel to Munich together, learn about German bankruptcy law, take a hike in the Alps to contemplate its greater meaning and see where really good beer fits in with all of this.

Update 06/26/09: Now at $224 thanks to a contribution from a non-bankruptcy humanoid who wishes to remain anonymous, but says:

I’m not a lawyer (or a law student), but I find the comic to be quite amusing (a close friend who accidentally wound up focusing on bankruptcies referred me) and I do get most, if not all, of the jokes.  Keep up the good work!

Update 6/25/09: Getting closer, now at $214 thanks to another generous donation from:

• Nancy Rapoport, (http://nancyrapoport.blogspot.com) which qualifies her to supplant Bill as the main character in future Bankruptcy Bill cartoons!  Check out her recent post on the book Lawyers in Your Living Room!  Law on Television by Michael Asimov.  Nancy is  the Gordon Silver Professor of Law at the William S. Boyd School of Law, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, with specialties in bankruptcy ethics, ethics in governance, and the depiction of lawyers in popular culture.  We already mentioned that she’s the author of the book Enron: Corporate Fiascos and Their Implications (with Jeffrey Van Niel) and appeared in the movie Enron:  The Smartest Guys in the Room.  

Update 6/21/09: Still at $189 on the summer solstice.

Update 6/18/09: Now up to $189 thanks to:

• Dean Langdon, (second-time donor) a bankruptcy lawyer with the firm of Wise DelCotto PLLC in Lexington, KY and, more importantly, the second bankruptcy lawyer we’re aware of who appears in the IMDB (Internet Movie Database).  “Got to see BAPCPA Man!!” says Dean, who was the associate producer for Ben Johnson:  Third Cowboy on the Right, a documentary on the life of famed character actor and rodeo star Ben Johnson.

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Update 6/18/09: Still stuck at $174.  Running out of cash collateral.  Can anyone recommend a good claims agent?

Update 6/16/09: Now we’re past the halfway mark, up to $174–with $126 left to go–thanks to a third donation from:

• Nancy Rapoport, (http://nancyrapoport.blogspot.com) which qualifies her to potentially be a new character in a future Bankruptcy Bill cartoon! (Non-dischargeable Nancy?)  Nancy is  the Gordon Silver Professor of Law at the William S. Boyd School of Law, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, with specialties in bankruptcy ethics, ethics in governance, and the depiction of lawyers in popular culture.  We already mentioned that she’s the author of the book Enron: Corporate Fiascos and Their Implications (with Jeffrey Van Niel) and appeared in the movie Enron:  The Smartest Guys in the Room.  But what perhaps you don’t know is that she may be the only bankruptcy lawyer in the Internet Movie Database (IMDB).  (If you know of any others, please let us know and we’ll post their names here.)

Update 6/15/09: Up to $149, thanks to a donation from:

• Marc Stern, a bankruptcy lawyer in Seattle, WA with over 27 years of law practice experience who has what may be the boldest and funniest website address a lawyer could ever hope to have:  www.chutzpahlaw.com.  Marc has also co-written a book titled Letters for Bankruptcy Lawyers: Essential Communication for Clients, Creditors, Opposing Counsel and Others and a number of articles including Debts That Can Follow You to the Grave.

*For the record, the lawyers and others who have donated don’t ask us to write this stuff.  We just take a look at their websites, perhaps while sitting on a conference call with committee counsel, and come up with it on our own in the moments between working on fee applications and filing objections.

Update 6/14/09: No new donations over the weekend.  Still at $124 with $176 to go.  Running out of time before our reorganization is converted to a liquidation.

Update 6/12/09: Still stuck at $124.  Not a strong way to enter the weekend.  Why is it that our country is willing to bail out strips about GM but not about BAPCPA Man?

Update 6/12/09: Up to $124.  Only $176 to go. Thanks to:

• Michael Shiner, a bankruptcy attorney in Pittsburgh, PA with the law firm of Tucker Arensberg, P.C. who says, “Keep up the great work!”  According to his firm bio, Mike was named a 2007 Pennsylvania Rising Star by Philadelphia Magazine and by Pennsylvania Super Lawyers Magazine.

Update 6/11/09: $113 in “assets,” $187 in “outstanding liabilities,” thanks to donations from:

• Daniel Granof of the Independent Comedy Network (which has great original comedy video shorts)
• Mimi Speyerer, law clerk to Chief Judge Edward Ellington of the United States Bankruptcy Court in the Southern District of Mississippi (who is himself apparently a big fan of Bankruptcy Bill as well).

Thanks to carry-over donations from Strip #16, we get a $78 head start.  That means we only need to raise $222 to make this happen.

With small donations ($5, $3, even $1) from all of our readers, we can cram this plan down on those who do not support this site.  With large donations, we can do it faster than you can say “363 Asset Sale.”

As soon as we solicit enough support, we publish.  (And, not to boast, but we’ve got enough material in the bank to put out a new cartoon every day.  So feel free to challenge us with threats of a bankruptcy cartoon endowment.)

And as you’ve seen, we’re happy to post a link to your website, your blog or anything else that’ll make you feel good about chipping in.

Thanks for your continued STR.I.P. financing support, and we look forward to publishing again soon.

Yours truly,

Bill & Struck

"Plan B? I spill my coffee on you and we sue Starbucks."

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Thank you to everyone who supported Bankruptcy Bill with a donation and/or by mentioning our effort on your site, including LawShucks.com which encouraged readers to support Bankruptcy Bill in a post about the lawyers involved in the GM case and then subsequently got itself a nice mention in a New York times articles on law firms that resulted in some extra traffic for us.

But the super-priority secured thank-you (a new creditor class recently approved by the…um….Eastern Western District of Delaware) goes to three people who stepped forward at the last minute, each making donations of $39 to ensure an extension of time to solicit donations for Bankruptcy Bill (at least for another week):

• Nancy Rapoport, (who has now donated twice) the Gordon Silver Professor of Law at the William S. Boyd School of Law, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, with specialties in bankruptcy ethics, ethics in governance, and the depiction of lawyers in popular culture.  She’s also the author of the book Enron: Corporate Fiascos and Their Implications (with Jeffrey Van Niel) and appeared in the movie Enron:  The Smartest Guys in the Room.  You can read her blog here.
• Marc Carroll, of Translations.com (a rare non-lawyer fan)
• Walter Swett, a staff member in Congressman Charlie Rangel’s office in New York (another non-lawyer fan, which on second thought perhaps isn’t so rare afterall)

Bankruptcy Bill loves you guys (to the extent that an animated lawyer is capable of love) and thanks you for not only enabling the publication of this strip, but for starting off the next strip $78 in the black.  And the next strip is……..

Strip #17 – BAPCPA Man!

Does whatever a BAPCPA can.  Please do your part to help us raise the remaining $222 we need to publish it.

CLICK HERE to make a donation via PayPal for Strip #17

• Please don’t make Nancy, Marc, Walter and the others do all the work again (unless your goal is to turn them into clients).  If everyone chips in a little bit, even $1.00, the pain will be spread nice and evenly and everything will work out fine, just like in the new GM tv ad.

A reminder that we are always open to various forms of STR.I.P. Financing to help us continue to publish future strips of Bankruptcy Bill (ideally with more frequency).  Please contact us to discuss sponsorship or syndication opportunities.

• “GM First Day Hearings”
  
  • Posters – now available for purchase at:  http://www.zazzle.com/gm_first_day_hearings_poster-228977388281472583
  • Mugs – now available for purchase at:  http://www.zazzle.com/gm_first_day_hearings_mug-168706767375752803

• To receive updates for new postings:E-mail bill@bankruptcybill.us with the word “update” in the subject field, or get the RSS feed. (Note:  The previous e-mail address–bankruptcybill @ zoho. com–was having some problems.  So apologies if you tried sending email to that address and didn’t hear back from us.)

• Here are links to see more of Gideon Kendall’s creative artwork as well as his Sketch Journal and a recent profile of Gideon in the Kensington Brooklyn Blog.

Thanks!

-Bill & Struck

p.s.  Regarding copyright issues, our legal counsel, IP Aileen, says:  “Other bloggers/websites/publications:  You are more than welcome to post Strip #16 on your sites as long as you also include all of the text, links and images in this post, including this paragraph.  If you fail to respect our wishes, then we’ll turn you into a Weil Gotshal first-year bankruptcy associate and force you to spend 17 consecutive weekends in the bowels of 767 Fifth Avenue (aka the “GM Building”) working on fee applications in the GM case.”

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A reminder that we still are seeking STR.I.P. Financing so that we can continue to publish future strips of Bankruptcy Bill (and preferably with more frequency).  Please contact us to discuss sponsorship.  And thanks to everyone who has contributed and/or bought some merchandise.

• “GM Bankruptcy” Mugs – now available for purchase at http://www.zazzle.com/general_motors_bankruptcy_mug-168929093027665439.




• To receive updates for new postings: E-mail bill@bankruptcybill.us with the word “update” in the subject field, or get the RSS feed.

• Here are links to see more of Gideon Kendall’s creative artwork as well as his Sketch Journal.

Thanks!

-Bill & Struck

p.s.  Regarding copyright issues, our legal counsel, IP Aileen, says:  “Other bloggers/websites/publications:  You are more than welcome to post Strip #8 on your sites as long as you also include all of the text, links and images in this post, including this paragraph.  If you don’t, then we’ll find you and make you drive a Chevrolet Cavalier from Detroit to Washington and testify before Congress at the next auto-industry bailout hearings.”