BankruptcyBill.us

We’re pleased to share that Bankruptcy Man vs. Mortgantua – Part 6 recently appeared in the March 2010 issue of Maxinars Newsletter.

I just checked the PageRank for Bankruptcy Bill and apparently we moved up from a PageRank 4 to a PageRank 5 website.  Yippity doo!

What does this mean exactly?  We’re not entirely sure, but it sounds pretty good.

Then again, Abovethelaw.com comes up as PageRank 4 if you check their site.  And they must get exponentially more traffic and visibility than Bankruptcy Bill.

If any readers have insights and perspectives to share on what this all means, any comments and discussion are welcome.

The New York Times‘ Andrew Ross Sorkin is apparently a fan of Bankruptcy Bill, as evidenced by his recent mention of us in “Talk to the Times:  Andrew Ross Sorkin“:  http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/19/business/media/19askthetimes.html?_r=2&pagewanted=all

Sure it’s at the very end.   But we’re definitely not going to quibble.  We just hope that no one’s actually making investment decisions based on our cartoons.

Hey Andrew!  Let us know when you’re ready to “meet” Bankruptcy Bill and we’ll cartoon-ize you for a strip.

(For more on Andrew Ross Sorkin, check out this Nov 8 New York Magazine article about him and his book, Too Big to Fail,which should probably be added to Bankruptcy Bill’s recommended reading list.)

A nice profile about us by Charleston, South Carolina bankruptcy attorney Russell A. DeMott just went live on the Bankruptcy Law Network’s site.  Click below to have a look-see:

• Bankruptcy Bill and BAPCPA Man:  Cartoons come to bankruptcy

http://www.bankruptcylawnetwork.com/2009/11/02/bankruptcy-bill-and-bapcpa-man-cartoons-come-to-bankruptcy/

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LawShucks added its own take on Bankruptcy Bill’s Fantasy Bankruptcy in its Quick Shucks 10.08.09:

Fantasy bankruptcy is brilliant. Harvey Miller is the Adrian Peterson of the draft, but then do you go for the double-down strategy of picking Goldstein, or do you diversify and go with someone from K&E?

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(Click here to tell the ABA Journal if you think the Bankruptcy Bill site (including the Bankruptcy BillBAPCPA Man cartoons, bankruptcy haiku and the “Bankruptcy Lover” song) should be included in the Top 100 law blogs:  http://www.abajournal.com/blawgs/blawg100_submit ) and

Two nice mentions of the Bankruptcy Bill site:

1. A very flattering post by LA-based bankruptcy lawyer and BAPCPA Man fan Christine Wilton, Esq. who writes the Los Angeles Bankruptcy Law Monitor.  Here’s a clip:

Considering the negative stigma around bankruptcy law and in light of our nation’s economic woes, these cartoons are a refreshing departure.  They’re easy to read and understand.  They take the law and break it down into layman’s terms; a gift I rather admire.

We’re also pleased that Christine was moved to compose her own bankruptcy haiku.  Always good to see bankruptcy lawyers releasing their inner poets.

2. An  appreciative mention of our recent fantasy football/structured finance commentary by NYU Professor of Political Science Josh Tucker on The Monkey Cage, a blog written by a group of political science professors.  (Full disclosure: Josh is not only my cousin but also manager of Cluck U which competes against the BAPCPA Men in the Dzhankoye fantasy football league.)

BAPCPA Man #3 – Enter Subprimulus resulted in increased media exposure, as indicated below.  BAPCPA Man’s secret identity, meanwhile, remains a mystery….

1.  Above The Law – Non-Sequiturs 08.11.09

“For the bankruptcy law groupies among you: It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s… BAPCPA Man! [BankruptcyBill.us]“

2.  Bankruptcy Newz Digest

BAPCPA Man #3 – Enter Subprimulus was the #2 article* listed in Bankruptcy Newz Digest for Tuesday, August 11, 2009 – http://pinhawk.com/r/oCl(ObZ)bmlA(*o6tVbXk6o1oVo

*It bears mentioning that the #1 article (”Three more banks fail, bringing total to 72, The Deal, August 10, 2009″) is, in fact, dated August 10, meaning that BAPCPA Man should have been the #1 article and making this a fairly clear violation of the absolute priority rule.  (Well, our version of it anyway.)  Further research on the issue is warranted and may result in a “preference” action.

Interested in Advertising/Sponsorship/Syndication?  It’s less costly than pre-bankruptcy credit counseling and easier than a Chapter 7 no-asset case.  Contact bill [at] bankruptcybill [dot] us for more info.

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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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Reuters has listed Bankruptcy Bill as a sign of the times in its recurring feature “Signs of the Times”.

Listen to one of Bankruptcy Bill’s haiku read on the “Haiku-ing It To The Man” feature on NPR’s Studio360.  (Starts with about 1:31 left in the feature.)

Here’s the story lead from the Studio360 website:

Haiku-ing It to the Man

A few weeks ago we asked listeners to submit original haiku inspired by the state of the economy. Dozens poured in: our own unscientific proof that the financial crisis is a boon for creativity. Here are some of our favorites. (http://www.studio360.org/episodes/2009/02/13)

Click below to order the “Indignation and Litigation haiku mug (image of Haiku Bill on reverse side): http://www.zazzle.com/haiku_indignation_andlitigation_all_for_twocen_mug-168462018645854298

For those of you fortunate enough to be subscribers to Bankruptcy Court Decisions Weekly News & Comment, take a look at the November 25, 2008 issue for a nice article on Bankruptcy Bill written by Kate Colangelo that’s running on page 6.  (No, not that page 6.)

And for those of you who are not subscribers, hang tight as we’re seeing if we can get permission to post the article on this site at some point in the near future.

We’d like to thank the The Wallet (a WSJ blog on personal finance and investing) for mentioning us in their Loose Change post on 11/26/08 (”Fun bankruptcy cartoons, peppered with consumer haiku. We’re in love.”)

Also Commercial Law-Jurisdynamic Network for a nice pre-holiday post as well.

Wishing everyone a happy Thanksgiving.

-Bill

We’d like to thank Bob Lawless of CreditSlips.org for a very thoughtful and flattering write-up about Bankruptcy Bill in a post yesterday.  Who knew we were stepping into a literary tradition supported by case law?

Update:  We got over 1,300 hits in the last day.

“Bankruptcy Bill to the Rescue” – A nice item from today’s Wall Street Journal Law Blog, by Dionne Searcey.