Highlighting Southern Bankruptcy Practitioners
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than you do, he may argue better than you do, but you should never lose a case because opposing counsel was more honest with the court than you were."
Sam and Morton also relate what it was like to practice law
in the racially segregated South, and they discuss the treatment Jewish lawyers in the era in which they began the practice of law. As a part our undertaking to capture how bankruptcy law was practiced before the passage of the Bankruptcy Code and how it was practiced in the South, we also interviewed Georgia Bankruptcy Judges Stacey W. Cotton and W. Homer Drake, Jr. in 2014. These terrific interviews will be on our website soon and should be of great value to students or fans of bankruptcy history.
The interviews of Messrs. Zusmann and Levine are just an example of the interesting history that is preserved at the National Bankruptcy Archives (“NBA”), a national repository of archival materials relating to the history of debtor-creditor relations, bankruptcy and the reorganization of debt. Formed in 2000 through an agreement between the University of Pennsylvania Trustees through the Biddle Law Library and the American College of Bankruptcy, the NBA has collected 60 oral histories of important bankruptcy figures, videos of educational programs of historic importance, personal papers, documents related to some of the more significant bankruptcy cases, and organizational papers of the leading bankruptcy organizations in the United States.
The oral histories are available to you on the NBA website. The guidelines for taking an oral history and/or donating papers of possible historical interest to the NBA are set forth on the NBA website. Inquiries about the NBA can be addressed to Leslie O'Neill, Archivist, at [email protected] or feel free to contact either of the Archive Committee Co-Chairs, Joyce Bihary at [email protected] or Diane Sigmund at [email protected]. If you are conducting bankruptcy research or are interested in bankruptcy or legal history, we invite you to visit your National Bankruptcy Archives. We think you will be fascinated with the growing collection.
Foundation Year-End
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implementing a process that will enable our Fellows to sign up for monthly or quarterly gifts to be posted automatically to the credit card of your choice. But for balance of 2014 we need to go about the task of our fund-raising the old-fashioned way, and that includes those letters, those emails, those calls, and even this column.
Those of you who attended our Fall Fellows Luncheon in Chicago got to hear first-hand from The Law Project, one of our 2013 grant recipients, about the impact of our $10,000 grant, and even more so the critical shortages that continue to confront non-profit organizations across the country. Through its Pro Bono Committee the Foundation solicits and fields grant applications from deserving organizations all across the country – in every single Circuit. The generous contributions of our Fellows help to fund those grants, in inner cities, rural areas, and in the backyards of virtually every one of our Fellows.
As we count our many blessings this holiday season, please take a moment to remember the good work of the Foundation and its positive impact on the lives of so many who might otherwise lack access to the resources they need to regain their financial footing.