The State of Chapter 11 Practice
Most people would agree that chapter 11 practice looks a lot different today than it did in 1978 when the Bankruptcy Code was enacted. Some of those changes were arguably triggered by statutory amendments, others by shifts in various industries and financial markets, and still others perhaps by the professionals working in the bankruptcy system itself. Are these changes good for the system and the parties involved in chapter 11 cases? Can or should we be doing something more (or less) for financially distressed businesses? This roundtable will explore these and many related issues, trying to assess the current state of chapter 11 practice.
Original Air Date: 5/11/2026
Moderator: Judge Christopher Lopez
Academics: Professors Casey, Coordes, Ellias, Lubben, and Simon
Additional Materials:
A New Deal for Corporate Bankruptcy: Bring Back Chapter X by Steven. L. Lubben
Bankruptcy’s Guardian Gaps by Laura N. Coordes
CHAPTER 11’S RENEGOTIATION FRAMEWORK AND THE PURPOSE OF CORPORATE BANKRUPTCY by Anthony J. Casey
Bios:
Judge Chris Lopez was appointed to serve as a bankruptcy judge for the Southern District of Texas in August 2019.
Before his appointment, Judge Lopez was a member of the Business, Finance & Restructuring Group of Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP. When in private practice, Judge Lopez focused on representations ranging from top global corporations in mega-restructurings to middle-market debtor and creditor representations.
Judge Lopez lectures across the country on bankruptcy issues. He also serves as an adjunct professor at Thurgood Marshall School of Law.
Judge Lopez earned a law degree from the University of Texas School of Law. He also earned a Master of Arts in Religion from Yale Divinity School, and a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Houston, where he was a proud member of the Track and Field Team.
Judge Lopez currently serves as a council member of the State Bar of Texas Bankruptcy Law Section, an advisor to the State Bar of Texas Young Lawyers Committee, a member of the Nominations Committee for the National Conference of Bankruptcy Judges, and a member of the National Bankruptcy Conference.
Anthony Casey is the Donald M. Ephraim Professor of Law and Economics at the University of Chicago Law School. He is also the Faculty Director of the Law School’s Center on Law and Finance. His research examines the intersection of finance and law, with a focus on corporate bankruptcy and insolvency law. He has written about topics including asset valuation, creditor priority, the constitutionality of bankruptcy courts, cross-border recognition, and intercreditor agreements. Professor Casey is a Member of the International Insolvency Institute, a Fellow of the American College of Bankruptcy, and a Conferee of the National Bankruptcy Conference.
Before entering academics, Professor Casey was a partner at Kirkland & Ellis LLP. Professor Casey received his JD, with High Honors, in 2002 from the University of Chicago Law School.
Jared A. Ellias is the Scott C. Collins Professor at Harvard Law School, where his research focuses on corporate bankruptcy, financial distress, and the credit markets. He has recently written about the globalization of debt and debt restructuring, the costs of bankruptcy, and private credit, with work published in leading peer-reviewed journals and law reviews including the Journal of Legal Studies, the Yale Law Journal, and the California Law Review; his research has twice been recognized by the Corporate Practice Commentator as one of the Top 10 Corporate and Securities Law Articles of the year. A frequent commentator in outlets such as the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Financial Times, he regularly advises state and federal lawmakers on bankruptcy issues, including the California State Senate during the 2019 PG&E bankruptcy. Before entering academia, he practiced at Brown Rudnick LLP in New York, representing financial institutions and creditor committees in corporate restructuring matters.
Laura Coordes is Professor of Law at Arizona State University’s Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law. Her research focuses on bankruptcy and financial distress and includes commercial law, large corporate reorganizations, international and comparative insolvency law, and local government finance and policy. She teaches Chapter 11 Bankruptcy, Advanced Bankruptcy, Secured Transactions (in-person and online), and Contracts. Since 2022, she has also taught at Université Paris Cité in France.
Professor Coordes is an active member of the American Bankruptcy Institute (ABI) and was honored as a member of the ABI’s 40 Under 40 in 2020. Professor Coordes served on the board of the American Bankruptcy Law Journal from 2019 until 2022 and is an Honorary Master of the Arizona Bankruptcy American Inn of Court. Professor Coordes was the Reporter for the Uniform Law Commission’s Drafting Committee on Assignments for the Benefit of Creditors. With Charles Tabb and Kara Bruce, she is author of The Law of Bankruptcy (6th ed.), and with Eugenio Vaccari, Yseult Marique, and Geo Quinot, she is author of Municipalities in Financial Distress: An ESG Critique (Edward Elgar Publishing). She is also a contributing editor for Bankruptcy Law Commentaries (formerly Bankruptcy Law Letter). Professor Coordes is a co-founder/principal investigator of the Research Network on Public Authorities and Financial Distress, a global network examining the implications of local entity financial distress.
Professor Coordes received her J.D. with honors from The University of Chicago Law School, where she was a Bradley Fellow and served on The University of Chicago Law Review. She completed a legal fellowship at the Student Press Law Center after receiving her degree. Before coming to Arizona State University, Professor Coordes practiced in the Business, Finance and Restructuring Department at Weil, Gotshal & Manges in New York.
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.