Dealing with Debtors and Creditors with Mental Health Issues

Dr. Jay C. Williams, Ph.D., LCSW is a clinical social worker in Chapel Hill, N.C., where he has treated patients for depression, anxiety, trauma and stress, among others. He began practicing in 1978.

Hon. A. Thomas Small is a retired U.S. Bankruptcy Judge for the Eastern District of North Carolina in Durham. He served from 1982-2009, and as Chief Judge from 1992-99 and 2006-07). He was recalled from 2013-14.

Judge Small chaired the U.S. Judicial Conference Advisory Committee on Bankruptcy Rules from 2000-04, of which he was a member from 1996-99. In addition, he was Bankruptcy Judge Representative to the U.S. Judicial Conference from 2004-07 and a member of the U.S. Judicial Conference Long Range Planning Committee from 1991-96.

Judge Small was president of the National Conference of Bankruptcy Judges from 2000-01 and chairman of the NCBJ Endowment for Education from 1993-94. He also served as a board member of the Federal Judicial Center from 1997-2001, on ABI’s Board of Directors from 1989-95, and on the board of directors of the American College of Bankruptcy from 2002-05. He has been a member of the National Bankruptcy Conference since 2006.

Judge Small has served on the board of editors of Collier on Bankruptcy since 2007 and was a contributing editor to Norton Bankruptcy Law and Practice from 1987-95.

Judge Small received his A.B. from Duke University and his J.D. from Wake Forest University School of Law.

N. Neville Reid is a capital partner with Fox, Swibel, Levin & Carroll, LLP in Chicago and cochairs its Bankruptcy, Restructuring & Creditors’ Rights Group. His principal expertise is advising companies, lenders, receivers, trustees, investors and other clients on a wide array of insolvencyrelated issues, including restructuring corporations and their relationships with creditors, advising lenders on restructuring loans with distressed borrowers, and structuring acquisitions of distressed assets for investors.

Mr. Reid has more than 30 years of experience in this area, including 25 years as a bankruptcy trustee who is frequently appointed by bankruptcy judges to investigate fraudulent transactions and liquidate assets in bankruptcy cases for the benefit of creditors. He also has served as a receiver appointed by the SEC in a Ponzi scheme case currently pending in Chicago.

Mr. Reid is currently president of the National Association of Bankruptcy Trustees, and in 2017 he received the Illinois Harvard Law Society’s Role Model Award. He has been rated AV-Preeminent by Martindale- Hubbell and named to the Illinois Super Lawyers and Leading Lawyers lists.

Mr. Reid received both his B.A. magna cum laude and J.D. from Harvard.

Hon. Sandra R. Klein is a U.S. Bankruptcy Judge for the Central District of California in Los Angeles, appointed in April 2011. Prior to her appointment to the bench, she worked for more than 13 years for the U.S. Department of Justice, most recently as the acting assistant director of the Office of Criminal Enforcement of the U.S. Trustee Program, where she focused nationally on increasing detection and prosecution of criminal conduct in the bankruptcy system.

From 2003-09, Judge Klein was a bankruptcy fraud criminal coordinator with the U.S. Trustee Program, responsible for assisting federal law enforcement agents and assistant U.S. attorneys with bankruptcy-related investigations and prosecutions. From 1997-2003, she was a special assistant U.S. attorney in the Central District of California (on permanent detail from the U.S. Trustee Program), where she focused on complex white collar crime cases and bankruptcy fraud cases in particular.

Before joining the DOJ, Judge Klein served as a litigation associate with O’Melveny & Myers LLP and began her legal career clerking for Hon. Arthur L. Alarc?n of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and Hon. Lourdes G. Baird of the Central District of California.

Judge Klein is a member of the Board of Directors of the Federal Bar Association, Los Angeles Chapter, a member of the Board of Governors of Loyola Law School, and a community member of the Girl Scouts of Greater Los Angeles Board Development Committee. From 2010-20, she was a member of the Women Lawyers Association of Los Angeles (WLALA) Board of Governors.

Judge Klein has received numerous awards, including the 2018 National Conference of Bankruptcy Judges Public Outreach Award, the 2018 WLALA Distinguished Service Award, and the 2019 Girl Scouts of Greater Los Angeles Woman of Distinction Award.

Judge Klein received her Bachelor’s degree magna cum laude in music education from the University of Lowell in Massachusetts, her J.D. magna cum laude from Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, where she was admitted to the Order of the Coif and served as a senior note and comment editor for the Loyola International and Comparative Law Journal, and her M.B.A. with honors from UCLA’s Anderson School of Management in Los Angeles.

Rich Lauter is a partner in the Chicago office of Lewis Brisbois and Chair of the Bankruptcy & Insolvency Practice. Mr. Lauter has over 35 years of experience in corporate restructuring and insolvency.

Mr. Lauter's wide range of legal experience includes reorganizing financially distressed companies in and outside of chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code, representing and advising creditors' committees, financial institutions, real estate development firms, bankruptcy trustees, assignees, and receivers in all aspects of creditors' rights and insolvency matters. He has also served as a liquidating trustee, special counsel to the City of Chicago in multiple airline and airport related cases, counseled chapter 7, chapter 11, and liquidating trustees in numerous cases, and acted as chairperson for and represented numerous chapter 11 creditors' committees.

Mr. Lauter is considered to be one of the leading lawyers for chapter 11 creditors' committees in the United States and is currently a member of the Board of Directors of the American Bankruptcy Institute.