BankruptcyBill.us

Strip #16 – GM First Day Hearings is going effective!

Update 06/08/11:03 p.m.: We did it!  Strip #16 – GM First Day Hearings is going effective thanks to three last-minute donations of $39 from:

• 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)

Update 06/08/11:36 a.m.: TODAY IS  THE LAST DAY for Bankruptcy Bill unless we can raise $39.  No more joking.  Just a straight-up request for donations so we can keep providing entertainment for the community of bankruptcy professionals.

Update 06/07/09 10:23 p.m.: Still stuck at $261.  Still need $39 of cash collateral to make this happen.  (FYI, we had 152 site visits–on a Sunday, no less–and not a single donation from any of those readers.  Maybe they’re all tax and ERISA lawyers?)

Update 06/06/09 9:55 p.m.: Almost there:  $261.  $39 to go to find out what really goes on at GM’s first day hearings.  Latest donors include:

• Kent Anderson of Kent Anderson Associations, P.C. in Euguene, OR.  Click here to see Kent’s articles on the Bankruptcy Law Network.
  

Update 06/05/09 8:00 a.m.: Up to $246!  $54 to go until we can publish Strip #16 – GM First Day Hearings.  That’s triple chai (i.e., 3 x $18).  Like giving a gift to each of Bill, Struck and Aileen for their triple bar/bat mitzvah.  (Note to self:  Hold onto idea for future cartoon.)  Recent donors include:

• Hannah Purdy, an architect (yes, Bankruptcy Bill’s fandom runs far and wide) based in Brooklyn, NY with the firm of Walsh & Purdy, which specializes in architecture and interior design and has a terrific national reptuation.
• Eugene Melchione, a bankruptcy lawyer based in Waterbury, CT who is also the Connecticut State Chair of the National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys and recently elected to serve as President of the Bankruptcy Law Network.
• Dean Langdon, a bankruptcy lawyer with the firm of Wise DelCotto PLLC in Lexington, KY.
• Mary M. Taylor, a bankruptcy lawyer and founder of the Ponchartrain Law Center in Metairie and Mandeville, Louisiana.

Update 06/04/09 4:15 p.m.: Crossed the $200 mark to $211.  $89 away from Strip #16 – GM First Day Hearings.  Big firm bankruptcy lawyers bill $89 just for blowing their nose, so if you haven’t donated yet, start blowing your nose and make this happen.  New donors include:

• Richard A. Isacoff, a bankruptcy and real estate attorney who has been practicing for over 30 years in Pittsfield, North Adams and Berkshire County, MA.

Update 06/04/09 10:00 a.m.: Up to $196.  Plus some good love from LawShucks.com in a nice post that breaks down the law firm winners and runners-up in representing key committees and constituencies in the GM bankruptcy case.  (Kind of reads like a James Clavell novel.)

Update 06/03/09 4:53 p.m.: Rocketed up to $171 in the last 7 hours.  So is this it?  Are you going to let Bankruptcy Bill peter out like a Chevy Nova after 10,000 miles?  (Granted, it’s still a better rate of return than taxpayers will likely get on their investment in GM.)

Update 06/03/09 9:33 a.m.: Now at $170. Including donations from:

• Trademark (not bankruptcy) lawyer Scott Alprin of Alprin Law Offices, a bilingual (Japanese & English) firm based in Washington, D.C.  (Score one for IP Aileen!)
• Sam V. Calvert, bankruptcy and real estate attorney in St. Cloud, MN who has been practicing there since 1978.
  

Update 06/02/09 5:00 p.m.: Up to $140.  Isn’t that about the rate big firms bill out rookie paralegals?  (I mean, assuming they haven’t already been laid off.)

Update 06/02/09 11:37 a.m.: Up to $95.  Donors so far include:

• Jonathan Ginsberg of Ginsberg Law in Atlanta, founder of theBKblog
• Warren Agin of  Swiggart & Agin, LLC, a boutique law firm in Boston, Massachusetts focusing on the needs of technology companies, and writer of the Tech Bankruptcy blog
• Nancy Rapoport, 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.
  

Update 06/02/09 7:50 a.m.: Up to $65!  Still a ways to go but making progress.  Would really like to publish Strip #16 – GM First Day Hearings before the case is wrapped up.  Perhaps there’s a Weil or Dewey or even Honigman lawyer reading this who can negotiate a small cartoon carve-out?

Update 06/01/09 4:28 p.m.: Only one donation for $25 so far.   Come on, in the time it’ll take you to click over to AboveTheLaw, you could donate $1.00 via PayPal.  Would it help if we run a TV commercial showing Bill and Struck sporting rally caps?

Summary:  As soon as we reach $300 in aggregate donations, we can publish Strip #16 – GM First Day Hearings.

CLICK HERE to make a donation via PayPal

To our readers:

Bankruptcy Bill needs your help with its financial reorganization.

We have reached a point where we cannot afford to continue publishing cartoons and other content without consistent and significant STR.I.P. financing.  Absent a consistent source of advertising or syndication, we believe the only solution is to seek donations directly from our community of readers.  (Kind of like the NPR model, except that we’re actually going to stop “broadcasting” if we can’t raise enough for each strip.)

Here’s how the plan of reorganization is going to work going forward:

• We need to raise $300 before we can publish our next strip (#16 -  GM First Day Hearings).
• Help us by making a donation (via PayPal) in any amount — as little as $1.00 and as much as… well, heck, no need to put an upper limit on it.
• Once we reach $300, we’ll publish the strip.
• Any amount over $300 will automatically be applied towards the funding for the next strip.

We’re hoping there are enough people out there willing to make small donations each time (and perhaps a few willing to make larger donations) so that we can keep this site going well into the future.  We get well over 300 views each time we publish a new strip or haiku, so we’re optimistic that this approach can work even if everyone were to send in only $1.00.

And for the record, we’ve still got plenty of unpublished material.  It’s just a matter of spending professional time getting it drawn and maintaining the site.

Of course, we’re always open to advertising, syndication, customized cartoons, commissioned paintings of cartoons and any other ways to fund the site that would make the NPR model moot for us.  Just email us at bill @ bankruptcybill.us for more information.

In the meantime, thanks for your support and your donations.  We’d really like to keep this site as a going concern, and we hope you feel similarly.

Sincerely,

Bill & Struck

p.s.  And if this doesn’t work, well, hey, it was fun while it lasted.

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Tags: Bankruptcy blog, Bankruptcy cartoon, Bankruptcy humor, General Motors

This entry was posted on Monday, June 1st, 2009 at 3:47 am and is filed under UNCATEGORIZED/MISC. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.