From the Director Dec/Jan 2003

<h3>Redesigned ABI World Coming Soon!</h3>

<p>ABI World will have a new look and improved functionality in early 2004. The site will feature cleaner graphics,
extensive drop-down menus, a more powerful search engine, and a new-and-improved online membership directory.
Maintained will be our commitment to the latest in substantive content useful to insolvency professionals. Home
page fixtures will be daily headlines, legislative news, upcoming conference information and the ABI quick poll.
Easy access to the Career Center, American Board of Certification, GlobalINSOLvency.com and streaming media
are also featured. A new content-management system and cutting-edge web search technology will permit our many
thousands of research and educational products to be easily retrieved, at no cost to members. This will dramatically
enhance the site's usefulness as a research tool and membership benefit. ABI World traffic has grown exponentially
in the last two years. Through September of this year, total page views were nearly 16 million—double the views
for the entire year of 2002. More than 500,000 unique visitors from around the world have reached the home page
during the first nine months of this year. Credit for the management of the site's growth and the redesign is due to
our communications staff, led by our Director of Communications, Melissa Lanning Trumpower, and Webmaster,
Karim Guirguis. The new site will be demonstrated during the Winter Leadership Conference at La Quinta. Watch
for special mailings and postcard announcement soon!

</p><h3>Educational Exchange Assists French Bankruptcy Reform Effort</h3>

<p>ABI members were prominent during a series of November meetings with the national leadership of French
judicial administrators and trustees, along with representatives of the French Ministry of Justice. The meetings took
place in the context of proposed changes in French bankruptcy law inspired by chapter 11. The French <i>Conseil National des administrateurs judicidaries et mandataires judiciaires</i> (CNAJMJ) are the experts and specialists to
the profession in France. The association also consults with the legislature, much like the role ABI serves in the
United States. The meeting objectives included an overview of restructuring procedures, including out-of-court
options for medium and smaller businesses. Discussion with the key U.S. players focused on the comparative
aspects of American and continental practice, including the role of judges, public and private trustees, and
professional organizations. The Washington, D.C., sessions were held at the AOUSC and concluded with a
roundtable at the French Embassy before the venue shifted to Boston for the final two days. Many ABI members
participated in the exchange, including ABI Directors Judge <b>Judith Fitzgerald</b> (W.D. Pa.), Executive Director <b>Sam Gerdano</b> and former Director <b>Joe Bodoff</b> (Bodoff &amp; Slavitt; Boston). Others included <b>Alan Stout, Hugh Ray, Joseph Guzinski, Babette Cecotti, Michael Baxter, Steven Gray, Howard Brownstein</b> and <b>Lynne Riley.</b>

</p><h3>ABI Welcomes New Staff</h3>

<p>Katherine Duke joined our staff in November as a Membership Associate. She joins ABI after two years of
experience in membership relations in the non-profit arena for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. Katherine
will work on data collection, membership prospecting and analysis, assisting in new member campaigns and
membership services. A native of North Carolina, she is a 2001 graduate of Wake Forest University.

</p><h3>ABI, NCBJ Sponsor Mexican Educational Exchange</h3>

<p>ABI and the National Conference of Bankruptcy Judges co-sponsored a six-day educational exchange program on
international judicial cooperation. The program was co-chaired by <b>Josefina Fernandez McEvoy</b> (Squire, Sanders &amp;
Dempsey L.L.P.; Los Angeles) and Hon. <b>Louise DeCarl Adler </b>(U.S. Bankruptcy Court; San Diego). The first
segment of the program took place in Los Angeles from Oct. 12-14. Four Mexican federal district court judges
experienced in handling bankruptcy cases—Judge Ariel A. Rojas (3rd District, Veracruz), Judge Miguel Mendoza
M. (5th District, Veracruz), Judge Guillermo Campos O. (12th District, Mexico City) and Judge Carlos Padilla P.
(8th District, Mexico City)—met with several bankruptcy judges from the Central District of California, including
Chief Judge <b>Barry Russell,</b> Hon. <b>Thomas Donovan,</b> Hon. <b>Ernest Robles,</b> Hon. <b>Erithe Smith</b> and Hon. <b>Samuel
L. Bufford,</b> to learn about each nation's bankruptcy system and explore ways to facilitate the administration of
cross-border cases between U.S. and Mexican constituencies. They were accompanied by Lic. Luis C. Mejan,
Director General of Federal Institute of Bankruptcy Specialists (IFECOM), an adjunct of Mexico's Federal Judicial
Council that oversees the administration of bankruptcy cases in Mexico, and Lic. Griselda Nieblas A., an officer and
a member of the Board of Directors of IFECOM.

</p><p><b>Jon Ceretto,</b> clerk of the bankruptcy court in Los Angeles, explained the court's intake and case-initiation
system and electronic filings. The judges spent a full day at the Office of the U.S. Trustee, where U.S. Trustee
<b>Maureen Tighe</b> and her staff explained the office's responsibilities and discussed ways to improve oversight in
Mexico. The judges also had the opportunity to interact with prominent members of the Los Angeles Bar, including
<b>Gary Klausner</b> (Stutman, Treister &amp; Glatt P.C.), <b>Robin Itkins</b> (Kirkland &amp; Ellis), <b>James Stang </b>(Pachulski, Stang, Ziehl, Young, Jones &amp; Weintraub PC), <b>Michael A. Tuchin</b> (Klee, Tuchin, Bogdanoff &amp; Stern LLP) and <b>Kimberly Winick</b> (Mayer, Brown Roe &amp; Maw LLP), which hosted a beach-front dinner for the judges.

</p><p><b>Andrew Caine</b> (Pachulski, Stang, Ziehl, Young, Jones &amp; Weintraub PC), ABI's immediate past
president, welcomed the judges at a kick-off dinner in Pasadena. Special thanks go to members of the Latino
Turnaround and Insolvency Network (LATIN) for preparing outstanding materials in Spanish for the Mexican
judges.