Metropolitan News-Enterprise

 

Friday, October 21, 2011

 

Page 1

 

Neal Bason Chosen as Central District Bankruptcy Judge

 

By a MetNews Staff Writer

 

Los Angeles attorney Neil William Bason has been appointed by the judges of the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to serve as a judge of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Central District of California, Chief Judge Alex Kozinski said yesterday.

Bason, 49, is set to take his oath of office on Monday. Los Angeles attorney Julie Wagner Brand, who was also tapped to join the bankruptcy court this month, is set to take her oath of office that same day.

Both are set to maintain chambers in Los Angeles. Bason fills a new judgeship authorized in March by the Judicial Conference of the United States, while Brand succeeds retired Judge Geraldine Mund.

Bason has been special counsel at Duane Morris LLP in Los Angeles since 2009. He represents bankruptcy trustees in recovery and disposition of property and claim objections, and loan servicers and receivers in receivership matters, and handles other general bankruptcy and commercial law matters.

He was special counsel from 2008 to 2009 at Howard Rice Nemerovski Canady Falk & Rabkin, P.C., where he represented debtors, creditors, equity holders and purchasers in complex Chapter 11 proceedings.

Bason also served as a law clerk to Bankruptcy Judge Dennis Montali of the Northern District of California from 2000 to 2008.

Prior to this, he worked as an associate for the former law firm of Hovis, Smith, Stewart, Lipscomb & Cross LLP, from 1996 to 1999, and a contract attorney for various law firms from 1993 to 1996.

A native of Washington, D.C., Bason received his undergraduate degree from Johns Hopkins University in 1984. His undergraduate studies included a year abroad, attending the University of London.

He graduated magna cum laude from law school at Boston University in 1988, where he and was a note editor for the Boston University Law Review.

The U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Central District of California is authorized 24 bankruptcy judges. The court is one of the nation’s busiest, reporting 138,585 filings in fiscal year 2010, up 42.2 percent from the prior year.

Bankruptcy judges serve a 14-year, renewable term, at a salary of $160,080, and handle all bankruptcy-related matters under the Bankruptcy Code.

 

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