Summary:

In the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Western District of North Carolina, through Judge Ashley Austin Edwards, partially granted and partially denied motions for reconsideration filed by DBMP LLC and related CertainTeed/Saint-Gobain entities regarding a prior privilege and discovery ruling in the sprawling asbestos bankruptcy litigation.

Summary:

In , Judge George Hodges of the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Western District of North Carolina denied a debtor’s attempt to revise an earlier order extending the deadline for filing nondischargeability complaints under 11 U.S.C. § 523(c).

In a decision that should send a chill through every contingent-fee lawyer handling claims for bankruptcy debtors, the Bankruptcy Court for the Western District of North Carolina in Martinez v. Wolper Law Firm held that a law firm that successfully obtained a FINRA arbitration settlement nevertheless lacked an enforceable secured charging lien against the settlement proceeds because it failed to satisfy the Bankruptcy Code’s requirements for employment of professionals and failed to perfect its charging lien before the case settled. 

Summary:

In one of the more consequential procedural rulings yet arising from the ongoing DBMP LLC “Texas Two-Step” bankruptcy, Judge Ashley Austin Edwards granted a stay pending appeal of her earlier privilege-waiver decision that had ordered disclosure of hundreds of allegedly privileged documents in the sprawling asbestos litigation surrounding DBMP and related entities.

Summary:

In Montgomery v. GoodLeap, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of North Carolina refused to compel arbitration where the plaintiff plausibly claimed he never agreed to the underlying loan in the first place.

Summary:

What Judge Edwards has done in the DBMP decision—and what In re Wolbert foreshadowed years earlier—is to remind us that attorney-client privilege in bankruptcy is not a static shield. It is a conditional protection, one that can erode—sometimes quickly—once the debtor crosses the line from considering bankruptcy to committing to it.

And that line matters.