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As public officials push his rental properties into foreclosure, an Ohio landlord with nearly $1 million in back taxes will find no sanctuary in bankruptcy court, the Akron Beacon Journal reported. Judge Alan M. Koschik of the Northern District of Ohio tossed out Gary L. Thomas’ request for bankruptcy protection Monday. The landlord lives in Wadsworth but rents almost exclusively to lower-income tenants in Akron. Several of his paying tenants complain that the homes they rent are falling apart, with them inside. Since last summer, public officials have gone after 22 companies Thomas uses to manage or hold more than 100 properties. He tried to save 27 of the properties from a sheriff’s sale in October by pushing four of his companies into bankruptcy. Together, there’s $461,374 in back taxes on those 27 properties — about a third of all properties in the tax foreclosure case.

Weighing a key issue in the bankruptcy of the now-defunct law firm Howrey, a Washington, D.C., appeals court yesterday grappled with competing views on whether dissolved law firms can claim a portion of hourly fees from matters that departed partners brought to a new firm, Law.com reported. A panel at the District of Columbia Court of Appeals — comprised of Chief Judge Anna Blackburne-Rigsby, Associate Judge Corinne Beckwith and Senior Judge Vanessa Ruiz — heard oral arguments pitting Howrey’s bankruptcy trustee, Allan Diamond, against several large law firms that hired former Howrey partners around the time of the firm’s dissolution in 2011. Yesterday’s arguments focused on the so-called unfinished business doctrine, the idea that a defunct law firm’s bills for ongoing matters qualify as assets for the bankrupt firm that can, in turn, be used to repay creditors.

McKinsey & Co. should be denied consulting work in the Westmoreland Coal Co. bankruptcy, federal lawyers said in the latest attack on the firm’s restructuring business, Bloomberg News reported. The consulting giant has refused to disclose potential conflicts of interest in the coal case and is acting as a creditor itself, the U.S. Trustee, an arm of the Department of Justice, told a judge in Texas. That should bar McKinsey from giving Westmoreland advice on how to restructure its debt, the lawyers said. “McKinsey RTS must be held to the same standard as any other professional. No other professional would be allowed to do this,” wrote Hector Duran, a trial attorney with the U.S. Trustee in Houston. In a statement, McKinsey said that a new standard for adviser disclosures is being applied in the Westmoreland bankruptcy. The move is the second challenge by the bankruptcy watchdog in recent weeks. Last month, the U.S. Trustee in Virginia asked a federal judge to order McKinsey to return fees in a separate coal-company bankruptcy after concluding the firm had violated U.S. bankruptcy rules requiring disclosure of potential conflicts.