As a result, I’ll be taking a hiatus from Bankruptcy Bill and related work until….well, until whenever it is that I’m ready to start again I guess.

Below is a photo of Wynne helping me with the recording of the “Bankruptcy Lover” song on which she provided some of the background singing.  She is a classically trained pianist, for the record, but she also has a wonderfully goofy and fun side as well.  (Thanks to Lee for providing the photo.)

Click here if you’d like to read her blog about her experience with cancer along with the updates I’ve been posting in recent days for the benefit of friends and family.

Also, thanks to Joe for mentioning Bankruptcy Bill in the Member Notes section of their February 8, 2010 issue.

Time for a plain old regular Bankruptcy Bill cartoon.  (FYI, I had to go back to October 22, 2009 (Fantasy Bankruptcy #2) to find the last time we posted an independent, non-sponsored, non-special edition Bankruptcy Bill cartoon.)

Click here to see Bankruptcy Bill’s attempt at online dating.

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*WE DO CUSTOMIZED CARTOONS… Click here for more info.*

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*To see more of Gideon Kendall’s work go to www.gideonkendall.com or http://www.gideonkendall.com/blog.  Or order yourself a copy of Dino Pets or (coming soon) Dino Pets 2, the wonderfully illustrated children’s books written by Lynn Plourde and illustrated by Bankruptcy Bill’s favorite illustrator, Gideon Kendall.

New Feature: The Bankruptcy Word looks at the etymology of bankruptcy terms.  Matthew Knox is a first year associate in the bankruptcy section of Adair & Myers, PLLC, in Houston, Texas and enjoys learning about the exciting and storied world of bankruptcy. He can be reached at mak@am-law.com.

“Bankruptcy”

Where does the word itself come from? The textbook we used in my bankruptcy class in law school glossed over its origins in a way that hinted at mystery and controversy:

“[W]hether or not ‘bankruptcy’ derives from the Italian banca rotta or ‘broken [merchant's] table’… the clearest origins of United States bankruptcy law are to be found in England.”  (The Law of Debtors and Creditors, p. 107, 5th Ed. 2006, by current chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel and two-time Daily Show guest Elizabeth Warren, and Jay Lawrence Westbrook.)

Broken merchant’s table? Wait, what?

The story is that:

“In medieval Europe, a merchant who was unable to pay his bills was dealt with harshly: his creditors would come to the market and break his workbench over his head. Accordingly, the broken bench — banca rota in Latin — is both the legal and linguistic root of modern bankruptcy.” Harvey R. Miller & Chai Y. Waisman, Does Chapter 11 Reorganization Remain a Viable Option for Distressed Businesses for the Twenty-First Century?, 78 Am. Bankr. L.J. 153, 155 (2004).

Sandor E. Schick, on the other hand, takes thorough exception to this old saw in his article Globalization, Bankruptcy and the Myth of the Broken Bench, 80 Am. Bankr. L.J. 219 (Spring 2006). After sifting through the evidence, Mr. Schick concludes this is most likely a myth.

I’d be interested to know the truth because it would be telling either way. Frequently the roots of words and phrases themselves lie in the physical and literal events they came to symbolize, e.g. “deep pockets,” “purse strings.” The myth of the broken trade post leaps off the page, as opposed to the figurative use of the word. But more importantly, if true, a literal broken bench says much about the violent attitudes of punishment and deterrence towards debtors at that time. To this day, many potential debtors can’t help but associate similarly dark visions with the prospect of filing bankruptcy.

But if it is a myth, the perpetuation of that myth also says much about our views on bankruptcy, both now and then.

This association with violence is present in Edgar Lee Master’s poem “Hod Putt” from his 1916 opus, Spoon River Anthology:

Here I lie close to the grave
Of Old Bill Piersol,
Who grew rich trading with the Indians, and who
Afterwards took the bankrupt law
And emerged from it richer than ever.
Myself grown tired of toil and poverty
And beholding how Old Bill and others grew in wealth,
Robbed a traveler one night near Proctor’s Grove,
Killing him unwittingly while doing so,
For the which I was tried and hanged.
That was my way of going into bankruptcy.
Now we who took the bankrupt law in our respective ways
Sleep peacefully side by side.

Before we discuss the poem itself, it should be noted Edgar Lee Masters was an Illinois attorney who practiced with Clarence Darrow defending the poor before he struck it big with Spoon River. As you may recall from high school English, Spoon River was his frequently grim and acrid attack on narrow-minded hypocrisy in small towns.

“Hod Putt” is the first person we meet in Spoon River, the first tombstone after the morbid invocation in “The Hill.” Hod Putt relies on his profound misunderstanding of the “bankrupt law” to rationalize his evil acts of theft and murder. Indeed, he equivocates financial bankruptcy with moral bankruptcy to place himself on the same plane as the rich and presumably savvy Old Bill Piersol.

In “Hod Putt’s” equivocation, we see the same, unfortunate confusion of violence and bankruptcy as we do in the mist-shrouded origins of the word itself. But if Mr. Schick is right about the myth and as “Hod Putt” is so clearly wrong, these confusions should not remain.

Yet they do. Just this morning, a potential debtor asked me if her credit card company got a judgment against her, could she go to debtor’s prison. I assured her that a credit card company cannot compel a debtor’s incarceration on debt alone. Though this is true in the real world, this and other base notions linger in people’s minds when it comes to bankruptcy.

Have a suggestion for a future post of The Bankruptcy Word?  E-mail Matt Knox at mak@am-law.com.

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Gideon Kendall (the guy who illustrates all of the Bankruptcy Bill and Bankruptcy Man cartoons on this site) has redesigned his blog (www.gideonkendall.com/blog) and has rededicated himself to posting a new work every day (weather permitting).

He is currently posting, among other things, sneak peeks at just-completed paintings from Dino Pets at School, the forthcoming sequel to Dino Pets (which can be purchased on Amazon by clicking this link:  http://www.amazon.com/Dino-Pets-Lynn-Plourde/dp/0525477780).

His Electric Sex series is also not to be missed.

To see more of Gideon’s work, go to www.gideonkendall.com.  He’s also available for weddings, opulent bar mitzvahs and other religious ceremonies that could benefit from a cartoon or two.

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Thanks to everyone who submitted an bankruptcy song, to everyone who voted and shared their comments and to illustrator Gideon Kendall for suggesting the cartoon announcement prize idea.

Also thanks to our sponsors for their support of the first-ever (to our knowledge) Bankruptcy Song Contest and for collectively making a donation to the National Consumer Law Center in the amount of $25 for each song submitted (for which we received a nice thank you note from the NCLC’s Executive Director):

• Bruce Weiner (Rosenberg Musso & Weiner) – NYBankruptcyNet (Brooklyn, NY)
• George Haines & David Krieger (Haines & Krieger) (Las Vegas, NV)
• Russell A. Demott – Charleston Bankruptcy Blog (Charleston, SC)
• Nancy Rapoport (nancyrapoport.blogspot.com), the Gordon Silver Professor of Law at the William S. Boyd School of Law (UNLV)

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2nd Place

Congratulations also to Arlene Robins of Woodbury, NY for her wonderful submission “BANKRUPTCY WIFE’S LAMENT”. Arlene will receive a t-shirt (or other item from our fabulous catalog of BAPCPA Man and Bankruptcy Bill merchandise on Zazzle.  (Note:  Arlene is the wife of good-humored Long Island bankruptcy attorney Craig Robins, who also has an excellent song entry titled “DEBT-FREE GIRL”.)

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The Bankruptcy Song Submissions

Once again, here are the song entries for Bankruptcy Bill’s Bankruptcy Song Contest:

1.  “AMEND IT MY WAY” by Judge Sheri Bluebond (United States Bankruptcy Court for the Central District of California)

2.  CABARET” by Judge Sheri Bluebond (United States Bankruptcy Court for the Central District of California) (Click song title or scroll down the page to see lyrics.)

3.  “DON’T CRY FOR ME HOUSEHOLD FINANCE” by Judge Sheri Bluebond (United States Bankruptcy Court for the Central District of California) 

4.  “DEBTS IN WRONG PLACES” by Judge Alan S. Trust (United States Bankruptcy Judge, Eastern District of New York)

5.  “‘TWAS THE NIGHT BEFORE FILING” by Mark Sippel, Esq. (Sippel & Carroll PLLC (Kingman, AZ))

6.  “PHARAOH OBAMA – LET THE DEBTORS GO” by Mark Sippel, Esq. (Sippel & Carroll PLLC (Kingman, AZ))

7.  “THE BANKRUPTCY ABUSE SONG” by Mark Sippel, Esq. (Sippel & Carroll PLLC (Kingman, AZ))

8.  “DEBT-FREE GIRL” by Craig Robins, Esq. (Woodbury, NY)

9.  “BANKRUPTCY WIFE’S LAMENT” by Arlene Robins (Woodbury, NY)

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BONUS!

And if you just can’t get enough bankruptcy music, CLICK HERE to hear “Bankruptcy Lover“ by Bankruptcy Bill & The Fresh Starts.

Bankruptcy Bill has put together a list below of the bankruptcy lawyers for each celebrity bankruptcy (to the extent we can find the info).  If we’ve missed any lawyers or any worthy celebrities, please email bill [at] bankruptcybill.us to let us know, or just add a comment to this post.

Thanks to the following folks for supporting this post, each of whom is a celebrity in their own right in the bankruptcy world:

• Eugene Melchionne, Esq. – ConsumerBankruptcyTips.com (Waterbury, CT) – Connecticut State Chairman of the National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys and Current President of the Bankruptcy Law Network.

• Bill McLeod (McLeod Law Offices) – McLeod Law Blog (Boston, MA)

• Christine Wilton, Esq. – Los Angeles Bankrkuptcy Law Monitor (Los Angeles, CA)

• Kent Anderson Law – Oregon Debt Relief Weblawg and Debt Law Network (Eugene, OR)

• Cathy Moran, Esq. – BankruptcyMastery.com and On the Bankruptcy Soapbox (Mt View, CA) (aka Silicon Valley)

• Gailyn Wink & Michael Wink – Wink & Wink, P.C. (Denver, Co)

• Professor Nancy Rapoport – Blog: http://nancyrapoport.blogspot.com (Las Vegas, NV) 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.

And now, without further ado, is the first ever….

ALPHABETICAL LIST OF CELEBRITIES & THEIR BANKRUPTCY LAWYERS

Notably, two lawyers appear twice on this list.  Joseph Eisenberg apparently served as bankruptcy counsel to both actor Lorenzo Lamas and to Motley Crue frontman Vince Neil.  And big firm bankruptcy lawyer Debra Grassgreen served as debtor’s counsel to heavyweight boxing champ Mike Tyson and his company and also was lead counsel for the Creditors Committee in the bankruptcy of rap music star Marion “Suge” Knight.

B

Baldwin, Stephen

• Bruce Weiner, Esq. (Rosenberg Musso & Weiner) – NYBankruptcyNet (Brooklyn, NY)

Bracco, Lorraine

Buckner, Bill

C

Canseco, Jose

• Gregory Emerson, Esq. (Los Angeles, CA)
  

Corbin, Barry

• St. Clair Newbern III, Esq. (Ft Worth, TX)

D

Dykstra, Lenny

• Walter Hackett, Esq. – The Law Offices of Walter Hackett (Diamond Bar, CA)

F

Fingers, Rollie

G

Gwynn, Tony

K

Knight, Marion “Suge”

• Daniel McCarthy, Esq. – Hill, Farrer & Burrill LLP (Los Angeles, CA)
• Creditors Committee:  Debra Grassgreen, Esq. – Pachulski Stang Ziehl Young Jones & Weintraub; Website: http://knight.pszyjw.com

Kosar, Bernie

• Julianne R. Frank, Esq. – Frank, White-Boyd, P.A. (Palm Beach, FL)

L

Lamas, Lorenzo

• Joseph Eisenberg, Esq. – Jeffer, Mangels, Butler & Marmaro, LLP (Los Angeles, CA)
  

Lee, Stan

M

McMahon, Ed

N

Neil, Vince (Motley Crue)

• Joseph Eisenberg, Esq. – Jeffer, Mangels, Butler & Marmaro, LLP (Los Angeles, CA)

P

Perry, Gaylord

Q

Quaid, Randy

• Dick DeGuerin, Esq. – DeGuerin & Dickson (Houston, TX)
  

S

Sinbad (aka David Adkins)

T

Trump, Donald (Trump Holdings 2009 – In re TCI 2 Holdings LLC, 09-13654)

• Michael Walsh, Esq. – Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP (New York, NY)
  
• Philip Rosen, Esq. – Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP (New York, NY)
• Ted Waksman, Esq. – Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP (New York, NY)

Tyson, Mike (and Mike Tyson Enterprises)

• Debra Grassgreen, Esq. – Pachulski Stang Ziehl Young Jones & Weintraub (Los Angeles, CA)
  
• Robert Feinstein, Esq. – Pachulski Stang Ziehl Young Jones & Weintraub (Los Angeles, CA)
• Malhar Pagay, Esq. – Pachulski Stang Ziehl Young Jones & Weintraub (Los Angeles, CA)
• Maria Bove, Esq. – Pachulski Stang Ziehl Young Jones & Weintraub (Los Angeles, CA)

V

Vick, Michael

• Michael Blumenthal – Crowell Moring LLP (New York, NY)

Have we missed any lawyers or any worthy celebrities?  Please email bill [at] bankruptcybill.us to let us know, or just add a comment to this post.

*Do you have a good bankruptcy-related idea you want to write about, but it’s…

• too experimental for your professional practice blog? Try it out here.
• too niche for Above The Law? We want to read it.
• too frivolous for the ABI Journal? We want to publish it.
• too much career risk to write it publicly? We’ll let you use a pen name.

The Editorial Team at Bankruptcy Bill is looking for new writers and for writers with new ideas to add more flavor to the  bankruptcy community and help build on existing bankruptcy culture.  Humorous, serious, personal, analytical—whatever it may be, we’re interested.

*E-mail Bill [at] BankruptcyBill.us and tell us (or show us) your new idea.

We already have Bankruptcy Bill, BAPCPA Man, bankruptcy haiku and bankruptcy music along with BLT (Bankruptcy Lawyer Topics) and Bankruptcy Billables.  But there’s so much more that can be done!

We know there are plenty of other good ideas out there and we’re hoping to tap the braintrust that is the community of people connected to bankruptcy and see what we can come up with.

Think of it as “America’s Got Talent“…….for the bankruptcy world.

*Questions?  Ideas? Email Bill [at] BankruptcyBill.us to discuss.

Bankruptcy Bill’s Bankruptcy Job Listings!

That’s right.  If you have a bankruptcy/restructuring-related job to post –big, small, corporate, consumer or anything in between– e-mail bill [at] bankruptcybill.us and we’ll post it on this site.  For free!

Much of the bankruptcy community is already congregating on the site regularly, so we figured we might as well try to help out and share any relevant job listings.  We also plan to do a good job filtering the job listings so if a job is posted here, it’s hopefully worth your while to take a look.

Questions?  Job Listings? Just e-mail bill [at] bankruptcybill.us.

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.

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