Originally published in Student Lawyer , October 2002 (Vol. 31, No. 2)

Bankruptcy is big news— and big business—these days, with the likes of WorldCom, Enron, Kmart, and other large corporations seeking refuge in bankruptcy court. The practice flourishes in a down market, nurtures giant firms and one-lawyer shops, and has room for litigators, corporate lawyers, tax experts, and souls who want to reach out to help everyday folk.

Although you may be tempted to associate bankruptcy mostly with consumer crises, practitioners say that some of the best career opportunities lie with the business side of the practice. And that’s just on the debtor side of the equation. Creditors, too, need legal representation.

Yet another venue for doing bankruptcy work is the nation’s vast network of U.S. bankruptcy courts, some of which have permanent career positions for law clerks.

Some lawyers can’t get enough of bankruptcy practice. "It’s so delicious in terms of its complexity," says Eric Brunstad, vice chair of the business bankruptcy committee of the ABA Section of Business Law.

Brunstad, a partner with Bingham McCutchen in Hartford, Conn., also speaks to the thrill of being a young lawyer in court much of the time, and that doesn’t mean toting some partner’s briefcase. "I was sent off to court a lot to argue motions and other matters," he says, speaking of the early days of his career. Brunstad was just a fourth-year associate when he first argued cases before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.

"If you want to be a litigator, go into bankruptcy law," says Kathryn Heidt, a law professor at the University of Pittsburgh who, as a young associate, was in court several times a month working on bankruptcy cases. Heidt, chair of the Section of Business Law’s business bankruptcy committee, explains that the often-quick promotion to courtroom work is partly driven by the nature of the practice. This, she says, is especially true for Chapter 11 cases in the business context, which involve significant motion practice.

Aside from the courtroom experience of bankruptcy practice, you’ll also get the immense satisfaction of bringing a business or individual back from the brink of financial doom. "There is no greater high than having that sort of transforming influence on someone’s life," Brunstad says of helping people "get a new lease on life."

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Manuel Barbosa says he had a skewed view of bankruptcy law as static and dry before he took the bench, because his exposure in practice was limited to straight-up Chapter 7 cases, the most common type of bankruptcy for individuals. From his bench in the Northern District of Illinois in Rockford, he sees richness and variety.

There is a need for quality lawyers to represent consumers, says Barbosa, who heads a bankruptcy judges committee of the ABA Judicial Division. And that’s part of what Atlanta lawyer Shayna Steinfeld does in a varied practice where she represents creditors and debtors, individuals and businesses. A co-chair of the ABA Family Law Section’s bankruptcy committee, Steinfeld has the luxury of handpicking cases in her all-bankruptcy practice. The gray areas of the law, especially in Chapter 11 cases, attract her. "You can argue about anything ... ," she says. "You can be really creative."

As for the tax aspect of bankruptcy, Los Angeles lawyer Mark Wallace says the workload varies, depending on whether the bankruptcy entails liquidation or reorganization. Business reorganizations generate more tax issues, he says, although the practice lately hasn’t assumed that direction.

"Increasingly we’re seeing liquidations rather than reorganizations," says Wallace, of counsel at Stutman Treister & Glatt and co-chair of the ABA Section of Taxation’s bankruptcy task force.

Wallace also says bankruptcy tax practice can be tough to break into. His own career odyssey began with a federal judicial clerkship, which served as a springboard to 12 years of general tax practice with a Phoenix firm, which in turn evolved to the position he’s held for 11 years focusing on the tax angle of bankruptcy.

Steinfeld’s advice for students interested in the field, echoed by other practitioners, is this: Get a judicial clerkship, preferably in federal bankruptcy court, and get in with a firm with a solid bankruptcy practice. "I think bankruptcy is a hard practice to get into straight from school without learning from somebody who really knows the ropes," she says. Practitioners advise students to rack up course work in bankruptcy law, business law, accounting, and secured transactions.

Mike Sigal is a partner with New York’s Simpson Thacher & Bartlett and immediate past chair of the ABA Section of Business Law’s business bankruptcy committee. He says every good bankruptcy lawyer on the business side of the practice has to know the courtroom as well as the boardroom.

"You can’t learn bankruptcy law solely from the books," Sigal says, adding that lawyers need to understand bankruptcy litigation to provide business legal advice. "On the other hand, if you do solely court work, you’re likely to miss the business reality of what’s going on."

Be open to the breadth of the practice from the start, Sigal advises. "It’s important not to be too narrow in your early years, because if you don’t know what a corporation is, if you don’t know how a contract works, how the securities laws work, it’s hard to do the corporate restructuring or a plan of reorganization. You have to have a pretty broad non-specialty non-business familiarity with various areas of law."

Lisa Stansky (nolawritestuff@cs.com) is a lawyer and freelance writer in New Orleans.

To read previous Hot Practice columns, visit www.abanet.org/lsd/stulawyer and click on the Index or Previous Issues links.

Resources on Bankruptcy Law