Looking Back to Look Ahead
Do bankruptcy judges simply apply the Bankruptcy Code and Rules or do they sometimes make law that Congress later enacts or the Supreme Court by Rule later adopts? In recognition of the 100th Anniversary of the NCBJ and its journal, join the ABLJ to hear “Looking Back to Look Ahead” at which one of our judges will discuss with a few bankruptcy scholars this “play in the joints” between Congress, the Supreme Court, and the bankruptcy courts.
Original Air Date: 1/29/2026
Moderator:
Hon. Judith Fitzgerald (ret.)
Speakers:
Professors Skeel, Lubben, and Grohsgal
Additional Materials:
Thomas Small, Small Business Bankruptcy Cases
Dixon and Epstein, Where Did Chapter 13 Come From and Where Should it Go
Bios:
David Skeel is the S. Samuel Arsht Professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. He is author of Promise Land: The Inside Story of Puerto Rico’s Debt Crisis (Paul Dry, forthcoming 2026); True Paradox: How Christianity Makes Sense of Our Complex World (InterVarsity, 2014); The New Financial Deal: Understanding the Dodd-Frank Act and its (Unintended) Consequences (Wiley, 2011); Icarus in the Boardroom: The Fundamental Flaws in Corporate America and Where They Came From (Oxford, 2005); Debt’s Dominion: A History of Bankruptcy Law in America (Princeton, 2001); and numerous articles on bankruptcy and financial distress, corporate law, Christianity and law, law and literature, and other topics. His commentary has appeared in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post and elsewhere. He served on the Financial Oversight and Management Board for Puerto Rico from August 2016 to July 2024, the last three-and-a-half years as chair.
Stephen J. Lubben holds an endowed chair in Corporate Governance at Seton Hall University, School of Law, in Newark, New Jersey, and from 2010 to 2017 he was the “In Debt” columnist for the New York Times’ Dealbook business page. He the author
of the law school textbook Corporate Finance, with a fourth edition published in 2025.
He is also the author of The Law of Failure: A Tour Through the Wilds of American Business Insolvency (2018) and American Business Bankruptcy: A Primer (2d edition 2019), and, most recently, To Protect Their Interests: The Invention and Exploitation of Corporate Bankruptcy (2026).
He previously practiced law with the New York and Los Angeles offices of a major global law firm, as a member of the corporate restructuring department. Following graduation from law school, Professor Lubben clerked for Justice John T. Broderick, Jr. of the New Hampshire Supreme Court.