When will bankruptcy work hit the point that being hired as a re-tool candidate becomes a possibility?
I get a lot of questions like this on firms’ current and future capacity—have things hit the point where busy bankruptcy practices are unable to service the workload and need to bring in re-tools? And if not, when will that happen? The answer is that we don’t know, and no one else does either. No one’s crystal ball is working very well these days. Jack Williams, resident scholar at the American Bankruptcy Institute, recently predicted that Chapter 11 filings will rise at least 40% in 2009 from their 2008 levels, which were already highly elevated in comparison to recent years, according to this article by Mark Douglas of Jones Day. If Mr. Williams’ prediction comes to fruition and the current trend continues or accelerates, it’s conceivable that there could be an eventual tipping point, but only if other practice areas have enough business to prevent further cross-staffing amongst groups. As I mentioned last week, this is the single biggest impediment right now for would be bankruptcy
