New ABI Commission on Consumer Bankruptcy

The American Bankruptcy Institute announced this morning that it has convened a commission to study and propose reforms of the US consumer bankruptcy system. In light of the success of ABI's Chapter 11 commission, we can expect big things from this commission on Chapters 7 and 13. Some major names in consumer bankruptcy are among the 15 members of the commission, and Credit Slips is well represented, with Bob Lawless as Reporter and Katie Porter on the membership roster, along with one more super-prominent academic, professor-cum-judge-cum-professor Bruce Markell, now of Northwestern. I wish the commission had consulted Bob about its name. He would have pointed to his empirical work on small business debtors to suggest that this be called a personal bankruptcy commission, rather than consumer, but perhaps the inclusion of a good deal of small business debtors and business-related debts is taken as a given. Anyway, best wishes to the commission--we'll eagerly await its first reports and calls for comments!