The FINANCIAL -- As 2005 revisions to the bankruptcy code get sorted out through the courts and the nation’s financial crisis leads more companies and individuals to seek protection from creditors, a law professor visiting Georgia State University this week sees an exciting future for bankruptcy lawyers.

University of Dayton School of Law Professor Jeffrey Morris, a member of the National Bankruptcy Conference, is visiting the Georgia State College of Law this week as the Distinguished Southeastern Bankruptcy Law Institute visiting professor. 

“It’s a tremendously exciting time to be a lawyer who has the opportunity to go to court and say, ‘Look, nobody’s had to figure this out yet, here’s the first time, here’s how I think it ought to work and here’s why,’” said Morris. “It’s going to be setting the rules that will govern this for the foreseeable future.”

Each year, a SBLI visiting professor spends two weeks at the College of Law – a week in the spring and a week in the fall semester.

Morris, who serves as the Samuel A. McCray Chair in Law at the University of Dayton, visited the College of Law in February. This week, he is visiting classes at Georgia State and preparing a presentation he will give before the SBLI board.

Even as lawyers grapple with recent revisions, Morris says the presidential election may open a window to additional bankruptcy reform.

“How far that reform will go nobody knows – if it’ll turn back the clock to what it was before 2005 or if it will be a time to consider even more radical revisions of the bankruptcy laws so that we end up with any possible number of different ways of doing things,” Morris said. “Time will tell. Congress will let us know.”

Noting eastern European nations’ quick passage of bankruptcy protections after the fall of the Iron Curtain, Morris said bankruptcy relief is a necessary part of doing business in a capitalist economy because without it, business would be too risky.

Bankruptcy lawyers and judges, he said, help sort through a business’ problems and work to find solutions that satisfy all parties involved.

“To me the hallmark of bankruptcy has been, as a practical matter, that the lawyers and judges for a hundred years have started off the day with not enough to go around and had to figure out how to make do with what was available,” he said. “My experience has been that bankruptcy lawyers are a very cooperative bunch. They’re looking for solutions and they’re creative about those solutions.”

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