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Bankruptcy Business Back In Delaware
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November 2006
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Delaware is poised to regain its national stature as a top jurisdiction
for bankruptcy filings, according to recent newspaper reports.
Law firms whose Wilmington offices do a significant amount of
bankruptcy work are noticing, after two down years, an upturn
in filings, the Philadelphia Business Journal recently reported.
"With interest rates and oil prices high, I think you are
going to see a number of mid-market companies file for Chapter
11," said Peter Clark, the Philadelphia-based chairman
of Reed Smith's bankruptcy department.
"Things happening in the economy are going to drive a lot
more filings," Laura Davis Jones, managing partner of the
Wilmington office of Pachulski Stang Ziel Young Jones &
Weintraub, the nation's largest bankruptcy law firm, said at
a conference for bankruptcy lawyers reported in the Wilmington
News Journal.
Delaware's federal Bankruptcy Court tripled in size this spring,
as four new bankruptcy judges began 14-year terms on the bench.
The new judges are Kevin J. Carey, Kevin Gross, Brendan L. Shannon
and Christopher S. Sontchi.
Delaware became a hot spot for bankruptcy filings in the mid-1990s
as its judges developed a reputation for efficiency and business-friendly
rulings. In 2001, a majority of the nation's major Chapter 11
cases were filed in Delaware. The heavy caseload then became
a burden, and judges were borrowed from other courts to help
reduce the backlog.
"Having six permanent judges will stabilize things, and
we're going to see more of the big cases come back," Saul
Ewing bankruptcy chairman Norman Pernick told the Philadelphia
Business Journal.
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