Editor’s Note:  If you would like a copy of this document in MS Word (we know the font on this blog is hard on the eyes, we are working on it I swear, but in the meantime we are happy to send you our forms or checklists in Word), then please feel free to contact either of the authors, mark.duedall@bryancave.com or leah.fiorenza@bryancave.com.  And if you find this helpful, please check out the other “A++ Forms and Resources” we have posted to the blog, using the “Categories” drop down menu at the main page or clicking here and here.  Coming up next week:  another comprehensive checklist for preparing and filing a complaint.

The Master Deposition Timeline and Checklist

Two Weeks before Issuing the Subpoena (if you are issuing a subpoena to a non-party)

• Please remember to run conflicts on every witness before you issue
  

Editor’s Note:  Here at The Bankruptcy Cave, we love insolvency stuff; we eat it for breakfast and dream about it at night.  (We are not kidding.)  Sometimes that includes credit-related litigation, and so we keep our pre-trial, trial, and appellate skills honed.  To that end, here is a very helpful cheat sheet we prepared and which we bring with us to every deposition, just in case.  (Your author Leah even got to enjoy a no-show deposition in Chicago last year; she created a perfect record using the below.)  Feel free to use it, and if it is handier to have a Word version, email one of the authors.  We will update the post later to make it download-able, but the rudimentary blogging skills of your new editor prevent that now, alas.

Editor’s Note 2:  If you like practice tips and cheat sheets like this, see also Mark and Leah’s “The A++, Super Comprehensive, Don’t

The A++, Super Comprehensive, Don’t Ever Start Anywhere Else Set of Opening Questions, Introductory Matters, and Document Inquiries for Taking a Deposition [1]

Have you ever had to press garlic for a recipe? Or put together a Swedish bookshelf, purchased from a Swedish superstore? Yes, you have – and you may have succeeded, so long as you had a garlic press, or the bag of special Swedish tools respectively. But what if you don’t? Yikes. An easy part of the job becomes hard; your likelihood of failure increases, substantially.[2]

Practicing law is often the same. Certain tasks are very complicated. Reasoning, analysis, complex drafting, making hard things simpler for busy clients to understand – not easy stuff. But with the correct tools, forms, checklists, and

Winter is over; time for spring cleaning. Alas, your authors are so desperate to put off such drudgery that they decided to write about avoidance actions, and form language for notes and security agreements. If you represent lenders, try taking five from the cluttered garage, dust-bunnied closet, or bursting kitchen junk drawer, and read this; you may save your lender client a buck or two.

The Basics: Workout lawyers all agree on certain principles. For instance, fully secured creditors with undisputed claims deserve to be paid. Further, if the collateral value exceeds the amount of the secured creditor’s claim then payment must include interest, costs, and attorneys’ fees, if the loan documents so provide.[1]

The Wrinkle: But add a wrinkle – the kind of wrinkle rarely considered when structuring a loan, in the glorious salad days of the lending relationship. That wrinkle: Upon the obligor’s bankruptcy, what if