Bankruptcy scholarship is largely a debate about the comparative merits of a mandatory regime on one hand and bankruptcy by free design on the other. By the standard account, the current law of corporate reorganization is mandatory. Various rules that cannot be avoided ensure that investors'...

The law of corporate reorganizations controls the fate of enterprises worth billions of dollars and has reshaped entire sectors of the economy, yet its inner workings largely remain a mystery. Judges must police a small and closed fraternity of professionals as they sit down at a conference...