How I Got Started : Bob Gerber
The Senior Fellows Committee , in coordination with the Bankruptcy History Committee , has launched a new initiative to collect the stories of Senior Fellows ( those who started in 1983 or earlier ) about how they became insolvency professionals . Hopefully , this narrative from Bob Gerber will inspire you to send your narrative ( 1,000 words or less ) to jcudahy @ amercol . org . Help make this project a success .
Spring 1973 . I ’ d just been released from Extended Active Duty in the Air Force ; returned to my old firm ( then recently renamed Fried , Frank , Harris , Shriver & Jacobson , after Kennedy Administration alum Sargent Shriver joined it ); and was finishing up an internal investigation of U . S . Financial , a Southern California real estate developer and mortgage company , whose management had falsified transactions — and hence its EBITDA and assets . It turned out that U . S . Financial wasn ’ t worth nearly what it held itself out to be , and it was quickly apparent that it would have to file a Chapter XI . It would be filed in California , which was then the bankruptcy capital of the world . Though the size of its Chapter XI proceeding ( they were called “ proceedings ,” and not “ cases ,” in those days ) would pale in comparison to chapter 11 cases later filed ( including many on my watch , later in my life ), it was a big deal at the time — one of the largest Chapter XI cases ever filed .
But Fried Frank ( like most large N . Y . firms , at the time ) didn ’ t then have a bankruptcy department . So it teamed up with Shutan & Trost — a distinguished bankruptcy boutique in the Century City part of LA — for the bankruptcy filing . I was detailed to work with Ron Trost , who quickly became my mentor , and for whom I worked far more than the partners at my own firm .
The day-to-day work would take place in the Southern District of California , in San Diego , before Bankruptcy Referee ( and then
Bankruptcy Judge ) Herbert Katz ( an early Fellow of the College , who sadly passed in 2014 ), a wonderful judge for a young lawyer to appear before , and an outstanding judge in every other respect as well . But I lived in New York . And there was so much work to be done in that case that my firm would need to send someone out to San Diego to work with Shutan & Trost to get all the work done .
It would mean living in San Diego for the better part of three years . So my firm reached out to its young associates . It needed someone whose social life in New York was such that he could be away for three years and no one would miss him . I raised my hand . “ I ’ m your boy .” I then spent the next three years working and living in San Diego , working principally under Ron Trost ’ s wing . In a strange and far-off land , Southern California , a land of PSA stewardesses in hot pants , beach volleyball , and Cheech and Chong .
One night , Ron Trost called me . He and I were to handle a trial before Judge Katz the next day , with me second-chairing him . But an emergency came up . “ Bobbie ” ( that what he called me , then and maybe still now ), “ you ’ ll need to do it on your own .” I did . And I won it . And I learned that I could try a case , and not just argue motions and write briefs .
The rest is history . About 25 years later , I was a bankruptcy judge . With Ron Trost as your mentor , you could do a lot worse .
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