Washington, D.C., so many great and thoughtful ideas from so many Fellows, and so much enthusiasm even from the members of our new and outstanding Class XXIX!
To begin on a personal note, for twenty years as a Fellow it’s always been my mantra that the College has been blessed with great leadership. Our Chair Marc Levinson already has shown his ability to maintain that high standard during his two-year term as President, and I pledge to do my utmost to follow in that same tradition. I would enjoy nothing more than to receive a steady stream of calls and emails (famous last words?) from thoughtful and enthusiastic Fellows brimming with new ideas about how to make our great organization even better, and hope to get to know every single one of you who attends our meetings and seeks to get more involved.
I have learned one thing at the very outset (thank you Marc!): When I was Chair of the Foundation it was my job to solicit donations directly from the Fellows to support the grants made by the College and Foundation to pro bono bankruptcy legal services and related organizations across the country. As President, one of my primary responsibilities is to solicit the professional firms of our Fellows to participate in the Patrons & Sponsors Program that pays the administrative overhead, supports the many outstanding events organized at our meetings and across the Circuits, and defrays the cost of judicial attendance and participation at many of those events. So for those of you whose firms have yet to pledge for 2018-19 as a Sponsor ($1500), Patron ($2500), or Sustaining Patron ($5000), our zealous team of volunteers will be reaching out shortly to remind you that this Program is indeed the financial life-blood of the College -- critical to the continuation and expansion of our many College activities.
Of course, it certainly is not all about money – it’s about what the College does, and about seeking new and innovative ways to engage and provide educational and practice development benefits to our Fellows, to continue and increase our support for pro bono services across the country, to expand the resources of the National Bankruptcy Archives, and to enhance the visibility of these initiatives.
Just yesterday I got a CV from a Fellow seeking a Trustee appointment in a pending Chapter 11 case. As with virtually every announcement, press release and (sadly) obituary of a Fellow, it proudly trumpeted his membership in the College. There is a reason that we take pride in our status as Fellows – not merely as a career milestone, but because of our association with the good work of the College in all these areas to which so many of you devote your time and talent. This is an organization of leaders, and the real strength of the College is that so many of you step up to volunteer and devote your considerable talents to our efforts.
One of the initiatives that we propose to accelerate is the increased involvement of our International Fellows. In the last two classes we have inducted our first Fellows from Hong Kong and Singapore – both hotbeds of cross-border restructuring in Asia. We hope to increase the number and diversity (geographic and otherwise) of our International Fellows, and work with other bar associations to co-sponsor educational and social activities abroad that create additional touch points for them, and thus to promote their greater participation in the College. Both our International Nominating Committee and International Committee, chaired respectively by Steve Kargman and Rob Millner, are fully on board with these initiatives.
On the subject of Asia, I recently had the honor to join our Fellow, Chief Judge Cecelia Morris of the Bankruptcy Court in the Southern District of New York, on a trip to South Korea where we
From the President:
Excited About the College
Mark D. Bloom,
Greenberg Traurig, LLP
As I sit before my computer looking to tap out the first few lines of my very first column as President, I find myself already wondering where to begin. Just so many topics to cover – and coming off our tremendously successful Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C., so many great and thoughtful ideas from so many Fellows,
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