« Foreclosing On The Life Story In Your Head | Main | Mortgage Settlement Checks Bounce »

Trivia Time: Bankruptcy Lawyers in the Senate

posted by Adam Levitin

I always figured that Elizabeth Warren was the first bankruptcy lawyer to serve in the Senate.  Turns out that there's at least one other.  (I'm not counting Senators who have served as Chapter 7 trustees.) Anyone know who? Answer under the break.

The answer is Jacob Javitz, Senator from New York.  He was counsel for Standard Gas & Electric in the Deep Rock case that the Supreme Court decided in 1939.  That case had some other notable counsel:  William Sidley  (of Sidley, Austin) and Jason Honigman (of Honigman, Miller) were both involved. 

April 18, 2013 at 8:50 AM in Bankruptcy Generally

Comments

And, of course, a past president -- one who also filed bankruptcy himself.

Posted by: Ken Doran | April 18, 2013 at 10:59 PM

No, I don't think Durbin ever practiced as a bankruptcy lawyer. I believe he was a Chapter 7 trustee at some point, however.

The Presidents who filed for bankruptcy thing is trickier than it appears, I think. One can find reference to bankruptcy filings by Jefferson, Lincoln, Grant, and Truman. I'm not sure that any of them ever filed for personal bankruptcy. They all had financial difficulty and may have had partners or businesses that failed (Lincoln and Truman), but I haven't seen anything that clearly indicates that any of them individually filed for bankruptcy, as opposed to colloquially being "bankrupt" in the sense of broke.

Posted by: Adam | April 18, 2013 at 11:21 PM

Elizabeth Edwards, once the wife of Sen. John Edwards, had previously been a bankruptcy attorney. I don't know if any other senatorial spouses were.

Posted by: Ed Boltz | April 23, 2013 at 08:02 AM

Elizabeth Edwards was an expert bankruptcy lawyer before joining Democratic Party. She was an active lawyer and I don't think Jacob Javitz is as efficient as she was.

Posted by: Stryker Hip Recall Lawyer | April 24, 2013 at 03:30 PM

Did Warren ever practice? Hard to call a career academic / politician a bankruptcy lawyer.

Posted by: Pmike | April 26, 2013 at 11:47 AM

I recently had dinner with a group that included a bankruptcy judge who remembered a case where Elizabeth Warren appeared before her. Although Warren represented a party against a bank, it was a commercial case, almost certainly a business Chapter 11. In that case the bank lost.

Posted by: David Yen | April 28, 2013 at 10:42 PM

During last year's campaign Scott Brown attempted to make some hay out of Senator Warren's work as a bankruptcy attorney in a case involving Traveler's Insurance and an asbestos trust. http://factcheck.org/2012/10/warrens-role-in-asbestos-case/

Posted by: VenisandCoppLLP | May 05, 2013 at 05:31 PM

Thank you for the excellent piece.

Posted by: Ira S. | May 06, 2013 at 01:50 AM

The comments to this entry are closed.

Contributors

Current Guests

Follow Us On Twitter

Like Us on Facebook

  • Like Us on Facebook

    By "Liking" us on Facebook, you will receive excerpts of our posts in your Facebook news feed. (If you change your mind, you can undo it later.) Note that this is different than "Liking" our Facebook page, although a "Like" in either place will get you Credit Slips post on your Facebook news feed.

Categories

Archives

Bankr-L

  • As a public service, the University of Illinois College of Law operates Bankr-L, an e-mail list on which bankruptcy professionals can exchange information. Bankr-L is administered by one of the Credit Slips bloggers, Professor Robert M. Lawless of the University of Illinois. Although Bankr-L is a free service, membership is limited only to persons with a professional connection to the bankruptcy field (e.g., lawyer, accountant, academic, judge). To request a subscription on Bankr-L, click here to visit the page for the list and then click on the link for "Subscribe." After completing the information there, please also send an e-mail to Professor Lawless ([email protected]) with a short description of your professional connection to bankruptcy. A link to a URL with a professional bio or other identifying information would be great.

OTHER STUFF