This essay reviews the competing claims in the American Bankruptcy Law Journal's “Vanishing Trials” symposium. The essay concludes the contributions to the symposium are not as disparate as they might at first appear. One must distinguish between the level of contentiousness in a legal...

This article analyzes data from every certiorari petition involving either a bankruptcy case or an issue of bankruptcy law since the Bankruptcy Code's 1978 enactment. In bankruptcy cases, the certiorari process has favored governmental and institutional litigants. The statistical result is...

This empirical study compares the citation rates from general law reviews and specialty journals using bankruptcy scholarship as the lens. All things being equal, to get cited in the law reviews one should publish in general law reviews and join the faculty of a highly ranked school. Highly...

Although data from the Administrative Office (AO) of the U.S. Courts suggest that only a small fraction of the 1.6 million bankruptcies filed each year are business failures, new research from the Consumer Bankruptcy Project reveals that roughly 17 percent of bankruptcy filings involve the...

Just three years ago, Congress enacted controversial amendments to the Bankruptcy Code. The proponents claimed that the changes would drive the quot;can payquot; debtors (of which there were supposedly many) from the bankruptcy courts with tough new income-based eligibility requirements. And...

The social safety net for older Americans has been shrinking for the past couple decades. The risks associated with aging, reduced income, and increased healthcare costs, have been off-loaded onto older individuals. At the same time, older Americans are increasingly likely to file consumer...

Twelve to thirty-six months after a major hurricane, bankruptcy filing rates appear to increase for affected areas. The Article draws that conclusion by examining all eighteen hurricanes that hit the fifty United States between 1980 and 2004 and that caused $1 billion or more in damages. Despite...

For a consumer considering bankruptcy, Chapter 7 and Chapter 13 are options with vastly different consequences. In Chapter 7, a consumer earns a quick discharge after turning over all nonexempt or unencumbered assets to the bankruptcy trustee. In over 90% of Chapter 7 cases, the debtor has no...