University of Pennsylvania Finding Aids

Joseph L. Cosetti was appointed United States Bankruptcy Judge for the Western District of Pennsylvania in 1980, where he served as Chief Judge until 1994. He served as President of the National Conference of Bankruptcy Judges (NCBJ) from 1991 to 1992. The NCBJ, which provides continuing legal education to judges, lawyers and other involved professionals, aims to secure a greater degree of quality and uniformity in the administration of the bankruptcy system and to improve the practice of law in the bankruptcy courts. Papers in the collection span the period of 1972-2001, with the majority of the documents created in the years 1989-1992. Chiefly represented are materials created by the National Conference of Bankruptcy Judges and collected by the Office of the President from 1989 to 1992.

Kenneth N. Klee spent his career analyzing bankruptcy law and advocating for pro-debtor reforms to the Bankruptcy Code. He graduated from Harvard Law School in 1974 and joined to the California bar in 1975. He began his career as Associate Counsel for the Subcommittee on Civil and Constitutional Rights, a subunit of the House of Representatives' Committee on the Judiciary, where he advised Congress and helped draft legislation related to bankruptcy reform in the 1970s. He was also a consultant to the House Judiciary Committee from 1977 to 1982 and the Department of Justice from 1983 to 1985. Klee was a member of the National Bankruptcy Conference, an association of scholars and practitioners committed to the study of bankruptcy legislation and reform, where he was chair of the Committee on Legislation from 1992 to 1999. He worked at Stutman, Treister and Glatt and was a founding partner of Klee, Tuchin, Bogdanoff, and Stern, LLP. The collection, 1969-1999, includes papers relating to Klee's work from 1969 to 1995 as a legal assistant to the Committee on the Judiciary, including drafts of bills, handwritten notes, markup copies of legislation, reports, and correspondence; materials related to Klee's legislative activities from 1997 to 1999 as a member of the National Bankruptcy Conference; lectures, presentations, and related material created by Klee for continuing education courses, seminars, and other programs; course materials related to Klee's professorships at UCLA and USC from 1979 to 1984; photocopies and other reference material; and related material.

As a teacher, scholar, lawyer, and consultant, Lawrence P. King (1929-2001) played an important role in the reform of bankruptcy law from the 1960s to his death in 2001. King taught commercial and bankruptcy law at New York University Law School. He served on a number of congressional commissions formed to analyze and reform bankruptcy law, including the Advisory Committee on Bankruptcy Rules of the Judicial Conference of the United States. He gave speeches and participated in panels regarding bankruptcy legislation for a number of seminars and educational programs. He was an active member of the National Bankruptcy Conference, an organization of lawyers, judges, and professors dedicated to bankruptcy reform. He had leadership roles in National Bankruptcy Conference committees, including the Committee on Legislation, where he was Chairman. He is well known as Editor of Collier on Bankruptcy, a reference series that became the leading treatise on bankruptcy law during King's 40-year tenure. The collection,1952-2001, includes personal and professional correspondence; reports, correspondence, and memoranda relating to King's participation in the Advisory Committee on Bankruptcy Rules; congressional hearings and testimony by King and his colleagues; meeting minutes, correspondence, and committee materials from the National Bankruptcy Conference, of which King was an active member; papers relating to the New York University Advanced Workshop on Bankruptcy and Business Reorganization, which King created and taught; seminar materials from the Federal Judicial Center, the National Conference of Bankruptcy Judges, the Association of American Law Schools, and other organizations; articles written by King; teaching materials; subject files on a range of topics, including personal bankruptcy, bankruptcy reform, the Bankruptcy Code, consumer legislation, and the Marathon Pipeline bankruptcy court case; and other papers used by King in the course of his scholarship.

The Leonard M. Rosen Papers consists of the records of The National Bankruptcy Conference (NBC) Meeting and Administrative Records belonging to Mr. Rosen. Leonard M. Rosen was a prominent American bankruptcy attorney, and a co-founder of the New York firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz. . Rosen contributed to the drafting of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code, taught as an adjunct professor at NYU and served as chairman of the National Bankruptcy Conference from 1984 to 1992.

Randall J. Newsome attended Boston University for his Bachelor of Arts in 1972 and the University of Cincinnati College of Law for his Juris Doctor in 1975. With 28 years of experience serving as a settlement and bankruptcy judge, Judge Newsome is best known for his intelligent and pragmatic approach to resolving complex matters and he is frequently sought out as a national speaker on topics related to bankruptcy. Judge Newsome devoted much of his career handling local and national bankruptcy issues. Not only was Judge Newsome vocal about bankruptcy reform for consumers, but he was also actively involved with the ongoing legislative battles over bankruptcy reform, particularly during the ever changing Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act (BAPCPA) in the late 1990s. The Randall J. Newsome Papers, 1969-2010, primarily covers Judge Newsome's activities as a Bankruptcy Judge from 1982-2010 as well as his activities as a member and future President of the National Conference of Bankruptcy Judges (NCBJ).