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Welcome to Bankruptcy

Learn the basics of consumer and business bankruptcy law. This course covers bankruptcy theory, policy, and terminology. It also treats basic creditors' rights, the creation of the estate, the automatic stay, claims, discharge, and much more, emphasizing

Transcript

Welcome to Bankruptcy! Designed for 2Ls and 3Ls, this course features 37 lessons divided into six chapters.

The first chapter offers vital context to start your bankruptcy journey right. It covers the policy rationales for bankruptcy; surveys the basic workings and central players of the bankruptcy system; defines key terms; summarizes the typical remedies that secured and unsecured creditors have to enforce their claims outside bankruptcy; and introduces the petition, that vital document whose filing marks the beginning of every bankruptcy case.

The second chapter offers an overview of the estate and the automatic stay, perhaps the two most pivotal concepts in bankruptcy, alongside the discharge. In brief, the estate is the statutory trust from which creditors are paid in bankruptcy. The automatic stay is that all-important, self-executing statutory injunction that bars most collection activity during bankruptcy.

The third chapter is an ambitious group of lessons covering creditors, claims, discharge, and priority. Here, we'll learn about allowance and disallowance of claims, special protections for secured creditors in bankruptcy, the nature and scope of the discharge, and special unsecured debts that get paid ahead of others.

The fourth chapter of our course covers chapter 7 of the Bankruptcy Code. Here, we'll introduce ourselves to liquidation bankruptcy, in which the debtor relinquishes all nonexempt property to creditors, in exchange for a discharge of all dischargeable debts.

The fifth chapter is all about chapter 13 of the Bankruptcy Code. Chapter 13 is a fascinating system in which the debtor keeps her nonexempt property and, in exchange, makes payments to creditors for a predetermined time, usually three to five years.

Finally, the sixth chapter covers preferences. Debtors oftentimes make significant transfers to creditors shortly before declaring bankruptcy. In the right circumstances, the Bankruptcy Code permits the estate to claw back these transfers, called preferences, and distribute them equitably for all creditors' benefit.

If you watch all our lesson videos and try all our practice questions, you'll be primed to earn great marks on your bankruptcy exam. Let's get started.