Advanced Bankruptcy Clinic

Catalog description

This clinic involves an examination of the federal bankruptcy laws on a more advanced level than in the Bankruptcy and Mortgage Foreclosure Clinic. The clinic concentrates on two areas of bankruptcy practice: Chapter 13 Proceedings and Adversary Proceedings. Chapter 13 bankruptcy permits debtors to propose a plan to the court which would permit them to repay creditors including mortgage arrears and taxes over a course of time. Adversary Proceedings are litigation in bankruptcy court that can involve a variety of matters such as questions of discharge; bad faith filings or fraudulent conveyances. These are applications by a creditor or Trustee to recover assets for the creditors, disallow the discharge or dismiss the bankruptcy petition. This aspect of bankruptcy practice will give the student experience in motion practice and trial practice, in a discrete, manageable aspect of a case. Clinic students will represent clients in adversary proceedings, even though the client was not represented by the clinic in the original bankruptcy filing.