Bankruptcy judge marvin isgur judge

Click here to submit it for this profile! Judge Isgur was appointed on February 1,and re-appointed on February 1, His term will expire on January 31, Judge Isgur received both his undergraduate and J. Isgur serves as adjunct faculty at the University of Houston Law Center. Ballotpedia featuresencyclopedic articles written and curated by our professional staff of editors, writers, and researchers.

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However, if you find something's just not right, we want to know! At Porter Hedges, Jones and Freeman worked closely together. In several pleadings from that time, they appear on the same signature block, indicating that they were jointly handling a case. It's unclear when Jones and Freeman first became romantically involved, but Porter Hedges appeared to take a more liberal stance on interoffice romance than many Big Law firms did at the time.

John Higgins, a senior partner, started dating Whitney Ables when they worked together at Porter; they were later married in a ceremony Jones officiated. Josh Wolfshohl also met his wife Amy Lucas bankruptcy judge marvin isgur judge they were working together there; both remain at the firm. And Porter hired Freeman even though her husband was already a partner there.

Isgur, during his time on the bench, had encouraged Jones to consider becoming a bankruptcy judge. When Judge Wesley Steen retired from the Southern District of Texas bankruptcy court inJones got his chance, and applied to the Fifth Circuit — whose judges appoint bankruptcy judges in the circuit — to fill Steen's seat. Jones would again become a close colleague of his mentor.

Isgur moved quickly to get Jones hearing cases, swearing him in at a private ceremony in advance of the official investiture, a small gathering he hosted in his courtroom on the fourth floor of Houston's federal courthouse. About two dozen people were there, according to two people who attended, including Freeman. She was tasked with taking pictures, and at one point, her emotions overcame her and she teared up, according to one of the attendees.

By then, Freeman had already decided to leave her job at Porter Hedges, where she was poised to earn handsomely by taking over casework from Jones. The following year, her husband moved to dissolve their marriage, according to Harris County records. I would not have expected that to be a typical career path for Liz," said a former colleague of theirs at Porter Hedges.

Jones kept the house he had shared with his wife, and sometime later, Freeman moved in with him, according to one person aware of the arrangement. The real estate photos Jones used later to sell the home showed what looked like a boy's bedroom, even though Freeman was the only one in the couple with kids, and a closet that held women's clothing.

InJones purchased a house in a gentrifying neighborhood in northwest Houston, not far from his previous home. Real estate records show that they came to jointly own it. Whether Isgur visited Jones at the homes he shared with Freeman is unclear, but the elder judge would have witnessed the dynamic between the pair over the six years they all worked closely together at the Houston courthouse.

Whether he knew about the relationship or not I don't know, but it would be difficult for me to think that Isgur was taken completely by surprise by the allegations. When Jones joined the bankruptcy court for the Southern District of Texas, Delaware and New York dominated as the venue of choice for major corporate bankruptcies.

But Jones and Isgur came up with a plan to make Houston a magnet. Corporate bankruptcies are big business. For decades, the process has been used by companies with too much debt and not enough cash to find fresh footing — and over time, it's become one of the most lucrative areas of law. In recent decades, bankruptcy forum shopping has become rampant, with firms filing in whatever federal district they like, just by showing a local address there.

Sometimes a PO Box is enough. So lawyers tend to congregate where they find corporate-friendly judges who have a reputation for quickly moving companies through the process and signing off on lawyers' fees. While Delaware and New York dominated as the venues of choice for major bankruptcies, millions of dollars flowed into the coffers of local law firms.

The judges became their own power centers, with every decision affecting the paychecks of local lawyers and the fortunes of their firms: Decide against the debtor and their law firm might seek a different venue for their next client. Houston judges had tried to break into the upper ranks before, without success. Judge William Greendyke promised attorneys in that the judges' "war on fees is over," according to Lynn LoPucki's book Courting Failure.

A year later, Houston-based Enron still chose New York for its spectacular bankruptcy. InJones and Isgur began to bankruptcy judge marvin isgur judge a more ambitious plan to make Houston welcoming. Success would mean more money for the men and women of the local bankruptcy bar, and more power and prestige for the Southern District of Texas. Even though the Judicial Conference, which sets policy for the federal courts, had long supported the random assignment of federal judges in order to deter judge-shopping, the new Southern District scheme would assign every complex case to just one of two judges: Jones or Isgur.

In fact, the two men sought to achieve an extraordinary degree of consistency across their two dockets and would often discuss each other's cases, according to someone who heard it directly from Jones. The two men would walk back and forth to each other's chambers on the courthouse's fourth floor. The judges threw open the doors to the bankruptcy bar, creating a committee of bankruptcy attorneys to advise the judges on industry best practices.

Another reform was to promise attorneys for major corporations concierge access to court officials to expedite scheduling and process matters. Jones assigned his case manager, Albert Alonzo, a government-issued cell phone and told him to answer it whenever it rang. Jones would call him in the middle of the night to test his resolve and Alonzo always answered, the judge told Reuters in He's great at customer service.

As they worked together, the two men grew close. Jones said he spent time with Alonzo's family during the holidays and at least once he and Freeman attended Alonzo's annual tamale-making party together, according to a social media post. Isgur was known to avoid spending time with Houston's bankruptcy bar outside of the courthouse or official conferences.

But just down the hall, Jones routinely blurred the boundaries between his professional and personal lives, becoming friends with a group of attorneys who often appeared before him. Jones had issued an order in arguing against "unspoken practices, or disparate treatment" even as he was offering special access, in a variety of ways, for this small network of lawyers.

According to two attorneys close to Jones' circle, a small group of lawyers would often hang around the judge's chambers, which he decorated with framed news articles about him. One, a Houston Chronicle profile, was headlined: "Meet the judge who saved the Texas bankruptcy practice. The locked entrance to his chambers became such a revolving door that when Van Deelen pressed the buzzer in Octoberintending to hand his retaliation lawsuit to Jones, he was let in with no questions asked, he said.

Alonzo once posted that a lawyer close to Jones, Susan Tran Adams, stopped by with coffee and empanadas. On his frequent visits to Jones' chambers, Isgur likely saw the crowd, which often included Freeman. Two attorneys specifically recall Isgur entering Jones' chambers while other lawyers were present. Jones said he and some of the lawyers formed a cooking team that would enter local barbecue and chili competitions, and several in the group recently started a nonprofit together.

Social media posts over the years of informal gatherings show Jones, Freeman, and Alonzo hamming it up with other lawyers. The following year, a Houston bankruptcy attorney invited a group of lawyers, including Jackson Walker attorneys Matt Cavenaugh, Veronica Polnick, and Genevieve Graham, as well as Freeman, then running her own practice, to a party for Jones, according to someone who was told about the party.

At the root of many of these friendships was a drop-in evidence class Jones began to lead for Houston lawyers soon after he joined the bench. The free class started small and invite-only, but after several years grew to number 40 or 50 students, according to someone who attended. Regulars included attorneys who worked at, or would later join, Jackson Walker, according to emails, such as Polnick, Graham, and Cavenaugh.

According to a recent Jackson Walker legal filing, "other bankruptcy judges and prominent local practitioners attended the classes" as well. Jones clicked with them, too. Not only did we become better professionals together, we became friends. Jones officiated the marriages of at least two lawyers who attended those classes: Tran and Graham.

The class was effectively yet another Jones strategy for attracting bankruptcy filings to the Southern District — and a way for members of the Houston bar to explore tactics they might later deploy in Jones' court. The classes were sometimes also a ticket to career advancement. At least one young law graduate, Christina Morrison, used the classes to successfully audition for a clerkship with Jones.

Isgur was well aware of the tight legal community around Jones' evidence class. He told the assembled crowd at Emory how "young lawyers show up weekly — dozens of them — to learn trial tactics and bankruptcy from David. After I tried and failed to find an opportunity to introduce myself to Isgur at the courthouse, I visited Isgur's home in April, hoping to find out how the judge was currently feeling about his adopted son and to ask when he first became aware of Jones' relationship with Freeman.

A woman who appeared to be his wife answered, keeping the door closed and speaking through a side window of the stately brick home. When I turned to leave, the woman noticed that my hair was pulled back in a ponytail. She commented on the style, and when I turned back to face her, she began to mock me, moving her hips in a side-to-side dance.

Are you trans? Jones and Isgur's efforts soon began to attract hundreds of filings to the district. Big names showed up: Neiman Marcus and J. Penney, then Chesapeake Energy. Tomasco, the Jackson Walker partner who was a member of the complex cases committee, had already been doing her part to build up the court and drum up business for her firm by flying to New York in a campaign to convince the Big Law bankruptcy attorneys to bring their cases south.

But the flow of cases only escalated after Freeman left her clerkship, in Mayand joined the firm. Freeman quickly became known as someone who bristled over complying with protocols and failed to loop her colleagues in on critical communications. She and Cavenaugh set up a business agreement that, according to two of their professional contacts, appeared to be premised on Freeman's tight relationship with Jones paying off.

Though Freeman hadn't worked at a law firm in six years, Cavenaugh and Freeman agreed to split the origination income they got for bringing in new cases, according to the two sources, who were told about the arrangement. Like anyone exiting public serviceFreeman hadn't done marketing in years. If she hadn't delivered, it could have meant a substantial compensation loss for Cavenaugh.

Instead, according to a November Jackson Walker filing, Freeman enjoyed "quick and substantial success.

Bankruptcy judge marvin isgur judge

Already, the rumors about Jones and Freeman's romantic relationship were frequent enough that at least one attorney confronted Jones about it; Jones responded by denying the relationship. The optics were different. Now, Jackson Walker had a partner with a direct line to the leading judge of the Southern District of Texas bankruptcy court. Business boomed.

From through that number more than quadrupled to Jackson Walker was involved in a large number of them, with Freeman, as the US Trustee said, creating an "unlevel 'playing field. As a clerk, Freeman was present while Jones and Isgur were concocting the idea of the complex cases committee. As a Jackson Walker attorney, she became a formal member.

But Freeman continued to act as if she were an insider. When Tomasco, for example, asked the committee members in a December 27,email if the court's hybrid hearing schedule would change, Freeman responded, according to correspondence BI obtained through a public records bankruptcy judge marvin isgur judge. By this point, Isgur had become one of the busiest bankruptcy judges in the country.

Jackson Walker attorneys including Cavenaugh and Freeman were frequently appearing in front of him. Bankruptcy rules require a company to be based in the district for days. But court filings in the bankruptcy of the biopharmaceutical company Sorrento show that Jackson Walker attorney Veronica Polnick — another former Jones clerk — visited a UPS Store on the outskirts of Houston to open a mailbox less than 10 hours before the company filed for bankruptcy.

That UPS store soon became the principal place of business for other Jackson Walker clients, according to legal filings: medical technology firm Surgalign Spine Technologies, sweet treat subscription company Candy Club LLC, and industrial food startup AppHarvest Products, all with mailboxes registered by Polnick — in one instance for a case filed by Cavenaugh.

In Aprilthe bankruptcy bar met for a conference at the Omni Hotel in Corpus Christi, a chance for attorneys to get continuing education credits — and face time with judges. As Cavenaugh roamed the room with the mic, one attorney spoke up, saying clients had reported that other attorneys were suggesting they had a special connection with the judges of the Southern District.

The attorney asked the judges how lawyers should respond the next time they heard something about these attorneys' special status, according to someone in attendance. Jones, in prefacing a noncommittal answer, suggested that the question was likely directed at him, the source recalled. By then, Cavenaugh and Jackson Walker were aware of the allegations of a Jones-Freeman relationship, according to documents the firm later filed in court.

Van Deelen had received the explosive anonymous note 13 months before, and an email he sent to Cavenaugh right after receiving it had sparked an apparently cursory internal Jackson Walker investigation. Freeman admitted that she and Jones had been in a relationship but said it had ended, according to a draft letter the firm's then-general counsel wrote in August to an outside ethics consultant.

According to Elizabeth, there has been no romantic relationship since prior to the time in March when COVID caused so many of us to shift to remote work and virtual-only meetings. Judge Jones and Elizabeth each own their own homes; they do not and have not lived together. The letter also described Freeman's critical role bringing in new business to the firm since she had joined in Much of this work was in cases before either Judge Isgur or Judge Jones.

This success was a team effort, involving other bankruptcy partners as well, but Elizabeth's leadership and contribution were recognized as integral. The letter said Jackson Walker had requested that Freeman stop working on cases once they'd been filed with Jones for a two-year cooling off period from the date Freeman claimed their romance had ended.

While the firm understood "that a close personal relationship remains" between Freeman and Jones, the letter said, "no further details were sought at that time. Jackson Walker later learned Freeman hadn't been truthful. The firm's counsel at Norton Rose Fulbright — Greendyke, the former bankruptcy judge — said in a November pleading that in Jackson Walker had "learned, quite by accident, that Ms.

Freeman's denial was possibly false or at least no longer true. When confronted again she initially denied the relationship but later on admitted to a current romantic relationship. When Freeman retained counsel, she chose someone with close ties to her romantic partner: Tom Kirkendall, Jones' first boss in the legal profession and someone who described Isgur to Business Insider as "a wonderful law partner of mine for over 10 years" and "a dear friend.

Later that year, Jones called Cavenaugh to his chambers after a hearing and "insinuated" that he was "unhappy" with the firm's push to disclose the relationship, the firm said in another filing. Instead, Jackson Walker said, Jones handed Cavenaugh a piece of paper with a proposed disclosure that listed a "close personal relationship" with Freeman sandwiched between references to a "social friendship" with Polnick and with Graham.

Jackson Walker, Jones insisted, "needs to make this happen," instructing the firm to file the disclosure in all future cases before him, according to the filing. Finding the language "potentially misleading or untruthful," Jackson Walker said it negotiated Freeman's departure instead; she left the firm in December to set up her own bankruptcy judge marvin isgur judge.

But Jackson Walker appeared to keep knowledge of the relationship to itself. The firm's attorneys continued to recommend Freeman for legal work on cases before the Southern District. Conflicts of interest appeared immediately. During the mediation, in which Freeman participated, Jones suggested naming an independent trustee, according to public remarks by Mike Warner, a lawyer involved in the case.

Neither Jones, nor Jackson Walker, nor Freeman disclosed the relationship. After the romantic relationship became public last October and Jones resigned, Isgur found himself once again at the center of a recusal matter. The estate of a creditor in 4E Brands, a manufacturer of hand sanitizer, whose bankruptcy case was transferred from Jones to Isgur, argued in October that Isgur was too close to Jones to rule on the case independently.

The US Trustee, which oversees federal bankruptcy cases, supported the motion, arguing the case should never have been heard by Jones in the first place. Yet in an apparent attempt to contain the fallout from Jones' ethics implosion, the Southern District's chief bankruptcy judge, Eduardo Rodriguez, ruled against the creditor. Isgur can continue to hear the case, he ruled, writing in the December opinion that lawyers for the creditor "failed to demonstrate much other than that former Judge Jones and Judge Isgur are close friends.

Rodriguez wrote that the estate had provided no evidence Isgur had "extrajudicial knowledge" of Jones' relationship or showed a "high degree of antagonism" in denying Van Deelen's March recusal motion — despite the magnitude of Isgur's missed opportunity. In the Sorrento case, a litigant filed in February to remove the case from the Southern District of Texas.

Again, the US Trustee lent its support, calling Sorrento's PO Box maneuver "a case of forum shopping and venue manipulation taken to a new and unprecedented extreme. This time, Judge Lopez — a member of the complex cases committee turned judge — denied the motion. Lopez had replaced Isgur when Isgur stepped down from the complex cases panel at the end of ; Isgur returned to the panel as Lopez's partner after Jones resigned in disgrace.

The Southern District has stuck to the model Jones created, of sending every complex case to a panel of two judges, flouting new guidance issued by the Judicial Conference of the US in March that further promotes random case assignment to limit "the ability of litigants to effectively choose judges in certain cases by where they file a lawsuit.

Effectively choosing judges, and knowing with a high degree of clarity how those judges would rule, was the very essence of the Jones machine. Those cases have been combined into a single proceeding, overseen at this stage by Rodriguez. That consolidation delays or even prevents what many would like: an impartial judge from outside the district hearing the cases and putting key players in the machine under oath.

The US Trustee began taking discovery on May 15, according to a scheduling order, but a settlement could halt that process and eliminate the risk that Cavenaugh, Freeman, Jones, or even Isgur would have to testify. The pick was widely interpreted as a sign that the Fifth Circuit had come to enjoy Houston's recent success and didn't want it to end with Jones' career.

Isgur told Bloomberg recently that he plans to give up handling complex cases, which would clear the way for Perez to take over. Former chief Southern District judge Richard Schmidt told Bloomberg that Perez's experience handling large cases would be a "godsend" for the district. Meanwhile, according to Debtwire, the Southern District of Texas' popularity has plunged.

Business Strategy.