To liquidate an underwater lender’s collateral, there must be a carveout giving unsecured creditors a ‘meaningful distribution.’

Although lower courts have disagreed, the Second Circuit joined three other circuits in holding that a standing trustee may not retain the percentage fee when chapter 13 cases are dismissed before confirmation. Consequently, ‘13’ debtors with confirmed plans pay standing trustees’ fees.

After conversion, the debtor was entitled to prosecute an appeal at the debtor’s expense when the appeal involved the debtor’s personal liability.

Chicago’s Bankruptcy Judge Donald Cassling nixed an idea that would have made chapter 13 unpalatable for debtors’ counsel.

A Sub V case was not of a ‘size or exceptional nature’ to justify a post-petition retainer when counsel could file interim fee applications.

The debtors’ inequitable conduct didn’t relieve counsel of the duty to disclose fees charged for post-petition litigation.

After the court had denied contract assumption, there was no compensation for keeping assumption alive pending appeal.

The district judge who excoriated Jackson Walker in a decision last year will now decide whether the firm must disgorge what it was paid in dozens of large chapter 11 cases.

A contempt sanction upholds the integrity of the court and doesn’t invoke Rule 69(a).

Courts are split on whether chapter 7 trustees can be paid on another theory when the trustee had made no distributions to creditors under Section 326(a).