From: Detroit, Michigan

Our June 2008 Member of the Month, Kurt O’Keefe (MI), has a solo practice in the areas of bankruptcy - chapters 7, 11 and 13 - and consumer cases that grow out of those: FDCPA, FCRA, TILA, RESPA. Those who attend NACBA conferences know Kurt as one of NACBA’s more colorful characters, not to mention his Hawaiian shirts!  Kurt serves as NACBA’s State Chair for Michigan, and is a frequent listserv contributor. A graduate of the University of Michigan (B.A. cum laude 1976) and Wayne State University Law School (1979), Kurt has the distinction of being perhaps the only NACBA member who financed his legal education through the purchase and re-selling of University of Michigan football tickets.  During the summer after his second year of law school, he interned with an Upper Peninsula (MI) prosecutor.  He then took a criminal clinic course during his final year, intending to go into criminal law. 

We invited Kurt to describe how he launched his career in bankruptcy law:

“I made it through school without any student loans, but also with no money, so I lived at home while working my first job at Professional Legal Centers.  They had 20 offices in five counties in Southeast Michigan, the concept based on lawyer advertising newly being allowed.
    
The plan was to get personal injury cases from people who had hired the firm for cheap divorces, real estate closings, driver's license restorations, and, yes, bankruptcy.

I was in a slow suburban office for 6 months when the lone bankruptcy attorney at the downtown headquarters went on strike.  He refused to file any new cases until he was assigned an assistant.   The firm was filing up to 150 cases per month, as they came in through any of the 20 offices, and were handled out of Detroit HQ, next to the bankruptcy court.

Although I had done only one bankruptcy, and had taken no classes on it, they chose me in the summer of 1980 to assist.

My boss said, ‘Here is a copy of the Bankruptcy Code, familiarize yourself with it.’

So I read it over the weekend, and again a couple of weeks later.

Ahhhh, technology.  They had a courier service do a daily pick up of the hand-completed carbon forms from the satellite offices and bring them downtown for typing, then returned to the satellite office for signing, then back downtown for filing.  We reviewed every word before it was typed, and again after it was signed.  We had to do all the hearings, so we wanted to catch any mistakes.

My boss moved into personal injury work at the firm. I took his place, with another attorney to assist me.  For the princely sum of about $18,000 per year, I was working 70-80 hours per week and had all the satellite office attorneys mad at me, as I would reject their petitions for filing for a single mistake, sending them back to the office for correction.

In October 1981, I told my boss that in order to properly represent the firm’s clients, I needed to hire a paralegal to replace the one who had left.  He said no, so I quit on the spot.

I forgot I was driving a company car until they tracked me down a couple weeks later.  I was still hustling football tickets, and had just put out my shingle.  No regrets.”

Kurt has been involved in several important court cases. In 1980, he brought a ride-through case to the 6th Circuit, but left his  law firm before the case, In Re: Bell, 700 F.2d 1053 (C.A.6 (Mich.), 1983), was argued. In  In re: Zaporski, 366 B.R. 758 (Bankr. E.D. Mich., 2007), Kurt successfully argued for taking the ownership expense for two vehicles on behalf of a debtor living alone, and for that deduction on paid-off vehicles. Kurt credits NACBA for providing the briefs on which his were based.  End of the story: the court ordered the case converted anyway.

In 2000, Kurt decided that since his practice at that time was focused mainly on bankruptcy, he should concentrate “on being the best bankruptcy attorney I can be, and get certified.” In 2001, in search of CLE credit to qualify for certification, Kurt learned about NACBA’s 9th Annual Convention in Philadelphia. “It was love at first sight.  I have not missed one since. There was - and remains - a great sense of belonging, with the rest of my brethren, fighting the good fight, for the underdog, across the land.”

Kurt has found the listserv to be a great connection and source of information. “At first, I was leery when someone at a NACBA seminar would lean down, read my name tag at a seminar, then look at me, asking, are you that Kurt O'Keefe I see on the listserv?  But all the responses have been positive so far, and it is nice to put faces on the names I see throughout the year.’

Kurt also volunteered to join the technology group when it started.  “I answered an email about being interested in the topic at the next seminar, and was stunned to see my name on a panel in New Orleans with real experts, the two Jays, left coast and right coast.” Kurt also served as the moderator of a panel on individual Chapter 11 cases at NACBA’s recent 16th Annual Convention in Hollywood.

As NACBA’s State Chair for Michigan, Kurt started a listserv for Michigan NACBA members. He has also been successful in encouraging fellow NACBA members to become politically involved and to respond to media requests “for witnesses to the mess that we deal with constantly.”

Kurt has been elected to the board of the local Consumer Bankruptcy Association and he also serves on the pro bono panel for the Eastern District of Michigan.

Kurt has a love of politics. Here’s a list of his involvement:

1. “In my youth, I was a political activist.  The first election in which I voted, I voted for myself for precinct delegate.
2. I went to Miami for the 1972 Republican convention, not as a protester, but a YVP ( Young Voters for the President).
3. In 1976, when my self interest dictated supporting President Ford, from Michigan I went to the Kansas City convention as a Reagan supporter.
4. By 1980, with the Republican convention in my backyard in Detroit, when my self interest aligned with backing Reagan, I was a Libertarian.
5. After that, I stayed out of politics except for a week and a half for Forbes in 1996, until the sewer rats in DC passed BAPCPA.   I know some may object to my referring to our politicians as sewer rats.  I admit that it does cast the rats in an unfair light.”

Kurt participated in NACBA’s Capitol Hill Day for the past two years – “an experience I encourage everyone to undertake.”  Kurt has a strong message for his colleagues in NACBA:  “BAPCPA has not been significantly changed yet.  But, if we do not participate, we yield the field to our enemies.  So, get involved!  Keep track of those clients with sympathetic stories.  Send them to Maureen or your state chair.  Contact your local representative! Our clients are usually ashamed of their situation, they need champions.  Step up to the plate, or kwitcher bitchin'.”

Kurt and his wife (who have been married 25 years), have two “awesome” daughters.  One a rising senior at the University of Michigan, the other a rising high school senior who plays rugby. Kurt boasts “they both watch UM football and hockey with me, and do not run out of the room when I enter. I am blessed.”