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A federal bankruptcy judge in New Orleans leveled a $400,000 penalty yesterday against a lawyer for clergy abuse survivors who allegedly revealed protected information about a priest to a Catholic school principal and a news reporter, NOLA.com reported. Bankruptcy Judge Meredith Grabill issued the sanctions against attorney Richard Trahant in a 30-page order, claiming he wrongfully disclosed information from discovery materials handed over in December in the Archdiocese of New Orleans' bankruptcy case. The information related to the Rev. Paul Hart, then chaplain at Brother Martin High School. Hart left his post in early January, days after the school was notified of allegations from 1990 that he kissed and fondled a Mount Carmel Academy senior while serving at another local Catholic institution. It wasn’t the embattled archdiocese that first alerted the school, however. Trahant admitted that he called the school principal, who is a cousin, after learning of the allegations involving Hart, who was not identified on the archdiocese's public list of credibly accused priests. Trahant also admitted he alerted a reporter for The Advocate to Hart's identity. Trahant insisted that he didn’t reveal any confidential documents, but admitted he “planted that seed” to expose Hart. He has argued that he didn’t violate the court’s protective order at all. “In no uncertain terms, I did what I did to protect children. I provided no documents. I read no documents to anyone,” Trahant said yesterday, adding that he would appeal the sanctions. Judge Grabill, however, found that his actions violated the protective order and caused harm, including “hurt and trauma revisited upon the survivor of the priest’s alleged abuse.” The judge also cited Trahant for failing to promptly come clean, resulting in a costly investigation by the U.S. Trustee.

Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP today announced that Hon. Shelley C. Chapman (Ret.), former U.S. Bankruptcy Judge for the Southern District of New York (SDNY), has rejoined the fiirm as Senior Counsel, according to a press release. She will be a member of the firm’s Business Reorganization & Restructuring Department and Chair of a newly formed Alternative Dispute Resolution Practice. Before beginning her service on the bench, Judge Chapman was a partner at Willkie from 2001 to 2010. A widely-recognized leader of the bankruptcy bar, Judge Chapman oversaw the Lehman Brothers Holdings bankruptcy case —the largest bankruptcy case in history — and many other chapter 11 mega-cases and chapter 15 cross-border proceedings, including Boston Generating, Innkeepers, Ambac, LightSquared, Sbarro, NII Holdings, Sabine Oil & Gas, Nine West, Century 21, Aeromexico, and Philippine Airlines. She has also acted as a court-appointed mediator in numerous complex chapter 11 cases, including Windstream, Frontier Communications, OneWeb, Avianca S.A., Purdue Pharma, and Sears, and is currently serving as the lead mediator in the PROMESA/ Title III case of The Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA)/The Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. Committed to furthering excellence in the wider bankruptcy community, she has mentored newly appointed bankruptcy judges and has hosted hundreds of school-age children in her courtroom for mock trials. Rejoining Willkie with Judge Chapman is Jamie Eisen, a former Willkie associate, who joins as Counsel and will work with both the ADR practice and Business Reorganization & Restructuring Department. Jamie served as Judge Chapman’s career law clerk since 2010.

A federal bankruptcy judge in Houston ordered new personnel to oversee the bankruptcy of Alex Jones’s Infowars late on Tuesday, citing an ongoing lack of transparency, including over Mr. Jones’s lavish personal spending, the New York Times reported. Judge Christopher Lopez dismissed Mr. Jones’s attorney and chief restructuring officer in the bankruptcy of Free Speech Systems, Infowars’ parent company, and expanded the duties of a Department of Justice-appointed trustee already monitoring the case. The judge authorized the trustee to hire additional legal and other help, specifying that any new hires must have “no connection to any of these cases,” he said, citing a need to investigate “insider relationships.” “There has to be greater transparency in this case,” Judge Lopez said during the hearing on Tuesday, pointing to concerns with spending and other disclosures on the part of the company, which is run by Mr. Jones. “Without transparency, people lose faith in the process,” he added, referring to the federal bankruptcy system. The lawyer and restructuring officer were together attempting to reorganize the company as part of the bankruptcy. In dismissing them, the judge did not fault their work, but rather cited a “lack of candor” on the part of the company, whose moves are dictated by Jones.