From: Woodbury, New Jersey

Our March 2008 Member of the Month, William Mackin, is a solo practitioner in Woodbury (Gloucester County) New Jersey, concentrating primarily in consumer bankruptcy matters, landlord/tenant disputes, and other areas geared to personal and family representation.  He handles small business bankruptcy chapter 11 cases as well, and a small part of his practice involves representing defendants in municipal court matters (having been both a municipal public defender and a former municipal prosecutor).

Bill’s practice is a long way from where he started, let alone where he thought he wanted to go as an attorney.  In law school he was convinced that he would be happiest as an in-house attorney for lending institutions, because they had the money!  So in law school, he concentrated his studies on banking and securities law, secured transactions, federal banking regulation, corporate structures and substantive corporate law.  It seemed a natural extension of his attendance at the Delaware Law School of Widener University, an institution geared to corporate law studies and his position as an assistant editor of the law review - the Delaware Journal of Corporate Law.

After graduating from law school in 1988, Bill became an associate in the Financial Services Department at Blank, Rome, Comisky & McCauley , a large Philadelphia law firm with, at that time, over 300 attorneys.  He worked primarily out of the Cherry Hill, New Jersey office and was able to work on large corporate chapter 11 cases.  Bill left Blank Rome in 1992 to work for a medium-sized creditors rights firm, gaining practical experience in bankruptcy and work-out matters from the other side.  However, the size of these firms did not suit his personality and need for independence.  Bill notes that had no clients of his own and had to work on discrete matters given to him by the firms’ partners and that he had no real connection to the clients. Bill realized that he was not suited to the “tall building” lawyer lifestyle.  In 1994, he decided to scale back, joining a small practice in Woodbury New Jersey where he was encouraged to develop his own client base. 

No one at the firm was doing bankruptcy work and, having worked in the bankruptcy area for large corporate debtors as well as institutional creditors, developing a bankruptcy practice was a natural fit.  His clients however were not large corporations or banks, but consumers.  Client development was significant enough to allow him to open his own practice in 1996: “I have never looked back!”

As a solo, Bill is “ably assisted by my trusty sidekick/paralegal, Diana Demeo who has been with me from the beginning.”  The office concentrates in providing bankruptcy services to consumer debtors and small business debtors in the Southern New Jersey area.  They have a small but very busy practice, receiving clients almost exclusively through referrals from other local attorneys and former clients.

Bill has recently been involved in two bankruptcy cases which have resulted in published opinions with significant implications for bankruptcy practice in the District of New Jersey.  The first, In re Cantwell, 336 B.R. 688 (Bankr. D.N.J. 1996), was a pre-BAPCPA personal chapter 11 case in which the court agreed with Bill’s position that the Supreme Court’s decision in the chapter 13 case of Till v. SCS Credit Corp., 541 U.S. 465 (2004) was equally applicable to chapter 11 cases and allowed the debtors to use a cram-down rate of interest, based on the “formula method” in their plan over the objection of a secured creditor.

The second, In re Brady, 361 B.R. 765 (Bankr. D.N.J. 1996), was a post-BAPCPA case in which Bill served as local counsel for NACBA as Amicus Curiae to assist fellow NACBA member and friend Scott Zauber in fighting a creditor’s objection to confirmation of the debtor’s plan.  “It was an amazing experience because I worked closely with NACBA’s amicus guru Tara Twomey and NACBA’s president, Henry Sommer.  I filed the application to allow NACBA to intervene on an amicus basis, moved to have Henry admitted pro hac vice, assisted Tara and Henry in preparing NACBA’s brief, tailoring it to the local court preferences and assisted Henry in developing his oral argument points.”

The court adopted the position put forth by the debtors and NACBA, holding that the above-median-income Chapter 13 debtors who had surplus income of nearly $600 per month on schedules I and J but who had negative disposable income on form 22C did not have to pay any dividend to unsecured creditors under the plain meaning of sections 1325(b)(1)(B) and (b)(3) in order for their proposed plan to satisfy “projected disposable income” requirement for confirmation.

Bill received a B.A. in Political Science from Stockton State College in Pomona, New Jersey in June 1983 and worked for two years as a purchasing agent before entering law school in August 1985.  He attended the Delaware Law School of Widener University, in Wilmington, Delaware, graduating cum laude, in May 1988. 

“While at law school I was fortunate enough to become friends with Professor Fairfax Leary (Fax to his friends), who was instrumental in drafting several articles of the U.C.C. and was universally recognized as an expert on commercial transactions,” says Bill.  “Professor Leary was an impressive man born into a prominent old Virginia family and his wife, was born into an equally prominent old Philadelphia family.  They lived in Villanova, on the Philadelphia Main Line, and frequently hosted formal and informal gatherings for Fax’s students, which reminded him of the movie The Philadelphia Story. Fax’s friendship and encouragement made Bill’s law school experience special, and he was able to repay Fax’s kindness by authoring a tribute to him on his retirement from teaching in 1987, which was published in 12 Delaware Journal of Corporate Law 829-30 (1987).

Despite Bill’s law student aspirations to eventually represent lending institutions, he also found himself drawn to representation of average people and spent his last two semesters providing legal services, under the third year practice rules, to lower income Delaware residents through the Delaware free legal clinic, mainly in landlord/tenant matters.  This is where he first developed an affinity for representing individuals.  It also allowed him to understand that to be truly effective as an attorney he would need some personal relationship with his client.  Ultimately, these lessons would be fully realized when he developed his own consumer bankruptcy practice and opened his own office.

Asked to reflect on an anecdote from his early career, Bill recalled the following:

“Most young attorneys fear, above all else, their first time in a court room.  I was no different.  I had been licensed to practice for only one week when the partner I worked for told me that I had to go to bankruptcy court to represent one of his clients.  I was clueless about what to do or what to say. The partner told me that no matter what, I had to tell the judge that my client would not agree to a creditor’s request for additional collateral to secure its post-petition DIP financing unless our client’s personal guarantee of the debt was limited to a certain dollar amount.  I nervously memorized what I was to say and headed off to court.  When I arrived I ran into my friend, Paul Masselli who was also there on the same matter and who also represented a different guarantor.  I talked to Paul and found out that he was there to make the same objection.  So I told Paul that I would let him make the argument and I would simply agree with him, allowing me to stay safely and quietly in the background without making a fool of myself.  Oral argument proceeded and Paul was actively engaged in argument with the lender’s attorney and the judge.  Many points were addressed and I found myself having an out-of-body experience, not really following all that was going on.  They were talking about matters of which I, at that time, had no conception.  After about an hour the judge looked in my direction and said, “Now let me hear from Mr. Mackin.”  Terrified, I anxiously rose from my seat, and remembering my partner’s admonition and strict instructions I said “Your Honor, Mr. Masselli has properly asserted our position and my client does not agree to the creditor’s request for additional collateral to secure its post-petition DIP financing unless our client’s personal guarantee of the debt is limited to a certain dollar amount.”   The judge did a double-take and said gently but firmly, “Haven’t you been listening?  That is no longer an issue!”  I thanked the judge, sat down and after the completion of argument, skulked out of the court room embarrassed beyond belief.  When I returned to the office I was sure that I would be fired.  But the partner just laughed telling me he didn’t expect to have our objection do anything anyway.  I thought that would be the end of my disastrous first court room foray, but I was wrong.  My friend Paul was so amused by my stammering failure that he ordered a copy of the transcript and mailed it to me to permanently remind me of that day!  What a friend.  I still have that transcript somewhere.”

On the advice of some friends who belonged to NACBA, Bill joined in August 2005 to take advantage of NACBA’s educational conferences on the 2005 amendments, which were soon to go into effect.  His attendance at the “Fighting Back” program in September 2005 was pivotal: “It made me realize that in order to survive as a consumer bankruptcy attorney in the post-BAPCPA world, a solo practitioner like me could not do without the vast network of talented attorneys comprising the NACBA membership and their selflessly shared thoughts, advice, suggestions, cases, work-product, and practice materials. Without a doubt NACBA membership has made me a significantly better consumer bankruptcy attorney.”  

Bill is an active participant on NACBA’s listservs, which have become for him “an irreplaceable daily tool of practice, providing an outlet for brainstorming within a virtual national firm with a shared goal.” The listservs have also assisted Bill in educating local bankruptcy judges about consumer bankruptcy and BAPCPA issues.  As officer of the New Jersey Bankruptcy Inns of Court, Bill has the responsibility of preparing a “Hot Topic” memo for each of their 2 monthly meetings.  The listservs have allowed him to present cutting edge Hot Topics for discussion to educate participating attorneys as well as every bankruptcy judge in the District of New Jersey who are also members of the Inn.