Attending My First NACBA Convention
By Nathan Juster Staff Attorney Atlanta Legal Aid Society
On May 4 , 2017 , I attended the 25th Annual Convention of the National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys ( NACBA ) in Orlando , Florida . I was able to attend this event thanks to NACBA ’ s Henry J . Sommer Legal Aid Scholarship , named in honor of the NACBA President Emeritus and Collier Editor-in-Chief .
I had never attended a NACBA convention before , but having grown up in Florida , arriving in Orlando on Thursday night was a kind of homecoming . As I took the escalator down into the
convention hall , I was about to experience a different sort of homecoming .
I was immediately overwhelmed by the crowds of convention attendees and vendors catering to every aspect of bankruptcy practice . In the throng , I spotted a familiar face . John Rao introduced me to Henry Sommer , the namesake of my scholarship . I was drawn into a discussion with John , Henry , Ike Shulman , and other longtime NACBA leaders . I listened eagerly as they swapped bankruptcy “ war stories .”
The next day was a flurry of activity . Executive Director Dan LaBert and President Jim Haller opened the convention by invoking the idea of NACBA as a “ band of attorneys ” fighting against corporate interests . This idea would serve as a recurring motif for the remainder of the conference .
Sports |
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next |
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“ The |
Champion ’ s |
Code : |
Building |
Relationships Through Life Lessons |
of Integrity and Accountability from the |
Sports World to the Business World .” |
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the U . S . Code . Rather , Bernstein drew |
“ I also had the opportunity to meet many new people . Everyone I met shared my passion for using the bankruptcy code to solve problems and help people .”
on honor and principles in the sports world to provide advice for success in the business world .
The sessions that followed were a flurry of high-level legal instruction . I strained my mind to keep in all of the law information presented by leaders in their respective fields . I learned about admitting evidence ( which some would say is a lost art in the bankruptcy world ) from Professor Edward J . Imwinkelried , author of the legendary Evidentiary Foundations . I learned about the CFPB ’ s RESPA and TILA regulations , a subject close to my heart , in two different panels . After every session , my brain buzzed with all of the information I had taken in . I was full of ideas I wanted to go home and implement in all of my cases .
On top of all of the legal knowledge I was gaining at the convention , I also had the opportunity to meet many new people . Everyone I met shared my passion for using the bankruptcy code to solve problems and help people .
The Friday night reception was unlike any professional event I had ever attended . Members met and mingled , genuinely enjoying each other ’ s company rather than stiffly networking . Intermixed with the typical convention chatter about sports and travel , academic-level bankruptcy discussion took place over plentiful food and drink . Nerdy as that may sound , it was a blast .
And it wasn ’ t over yet . Saturday morning , I got out of bed and headed back into another round of advanced
10 CONSUMER BANKRUPTCY JOURNAL Summer 2017 National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys