Toughest Issues in Mass-Tort Bankruptcies Bench-Bar Summit

Toughest Issues in Mass-Tort bankruptcies Bench-Bar Summit

Co-Hosted by Cleveland State university, College of Law — November 13, 2025

The Center will hold a Bench-Bar Leadership Summit Addressing Several of the Toughest Issues in Mass-Tort Bankruptcies at the Cleveland State University College of Law on November 13, 2025.

Eight federal judges will join 20-25 practicing lawyers and other experts on five panels considering potential solutions to the identified problems. Registrations for the summit will be limited to a maximum of 15 additional lawyers and other experts. The smaller size and the addition of more federal judges will ensure an in-depth analysis and enhance the likelihood that courts will adopt the practical solutions recommended in the Center’s forthcoming best practices.

The summit will address not only draft best practices developed by a team of nine judges and nine lawyers and other experts on topics discussed at the Center’s November 14, 2024, summit at George Washington University School of Law, but also fundamental issues, which have perplexed the bench and bar for years.

The panels will address:

Understanding the Reasons for Tort Lawyers’ Objections to Mass-Tort Bankruptcy and Lifting Automatic Stay for Selected Number of Tort Cases to Proceed in Civil Litigation;
Proposed Best Practices, Including Plain-English Forms; Consensual-Release of Nondebtor Liability Provisions; Proof of Claims Expansion; and Parens Patriae Claims;
Handling Lawyers’ Contingency Fee Agreements with Individually Retained Clients in MDL-Actions, Including Common-Benefit Fee Withholdings;
Estimating Values of Individual Tort Claims for Purposes of Voting on a Proposed Plan of Reorganization, Instead of Indiscriminately Assigning $1 for Every Claim; and
Model Plain-Language Summary Disclosure Notice and Consensual Nondebtor Release Provision.

New Jersey has approved 420 minutes (8.40 CLE credits) for attending the summit.

CHATHAM HOUSE RULE

The summit will be held under the Chatham House Rule: “[P]articipants are free to use the information received, but neither the identity nor the affiliation of the speaker(s), or that of any other participant, may be revealed.”

Registration

The registration fee for the summit is $950, which includes conference materials, a continental breakfast, coffee breaks, lunch, and grab-and-go snacks at adjournment. Two or more lawyers registering from the same law firm receive discounts (single registrant – $950; second registrant – $750; and third and each additional registrant – $600). In-house and company discounts are available.

CLE

New Jersey has approved 420 minutes (8.40 CLE credits) for attending the summit.

Summit Details

Agenda

Mass-Tort Bankruptcies Bench-Bar Summit Cleveland State University College of Law

AGENDA

Thursday, November 13

Location: Cleveland State University College of Law

7:45 am — 8:30 am: Continental Breakfast

8:30 am – 8:45 am: Welcome – Opening Remarks — John Rabiej

Panels

Speaker Bios

Questions Assigned to Each Panelist Download

Moderator: Tim Opsitnick, Executive Vice President and General Counsel, Technology Concepts & Design, Inc. (TCDI)

8:45 am – 10:15 am: Panel 1 – Understanding the Reasons for Tort Lawyers’ Objections to Mass-Tort Bankruptcy and Lifting Automatic Stay for Selected Number of Tort Cases to Proceed in Civil Litigation

Shenkman, Michael – Bailey & Glasser LLP
Coleman, Hayden — Dechert LLP
Prieto, Dan — Jones Day
Prol, Jeffrey — Lowenstein Sandler LLP
Harris, Robert — Binder Malter Harris and Rome-Banks LLP
Hon. Kaplan, Michael — United States Bankruptcy Court, District of New Jersey

10:15 am – 10:30 am: Break

10:30 am – 12:00 pm: Panel 2 – Proposed Best Practices, Including Effective Releases of Non-Debtors’ Liabilities (Purdue Pharma); Court-Appointed Neutrals; Expanding Information on Proof of Claim Forms; Parens Patriae Claims; and Court-Appointed Neutrals

Hon. Kaplan, Michael — United States Bankruptcy Court, District of New Jersey
Hon. Sargus, Edmund — Southern District of Ohio
Goodman, Eric — Brown Rudnick LLP
Hon. Poslusny, Jerrold — United States Bankruptcy Court, District of New Jersey
Hon. Fitzgerald, F. Judith — United States Bankruptcy Court W.D.Pa. (ret.), Tucker Arensberg PC

12:00 pm — 12:45 pm: Lunch

12:45 pm – 2:15 pm: Panel 3 – Handling Lawyers’ Contingency Fee Agreements with Individually Retained Clients in MDL-Tort Actions, Including Common-Benefit Fee Withholdings

Dockterman, Michael – McDermott Will & Schulte
Molton, David — Brown Rudnick LLP
Honnold, Brad — Goza & Honnold LLC
Kaplan, Michael — United States Bankruptcy Court, District of New Jersey
Hon. Calabrese, Philip — Northern District of Ohio
Harrison, Kathryn — Campbell & Levine LLC

2:15 pm – 2:30 pm: Break

2:30 pm – 4:00 pm: Panel 4 – Estimating Values of Individual Tort Claims by Assigning Multipliers for More Severe Injuries or Illnesses for Purposes of Voting on Proposed Plan of Reorganization, Instead of Indiscriminately Assigning $1 for Every Claim

Hon. Summerhays, Robert — Western District of Louisiana
Husman, Sam — Greenberg Traurig LLP
Ruehlmann, Greg – King & Spalding LLP
Davis, Kevin – Caplin & Drysdale
Alpert, Jennifer — Rubris, Inc.
DeLuca, Nicholas — Alvarez & Marsal

4:05 pm – 5:00 pm: Panel 5 – Plain-English Summary Notice and Consensual-Release of Nondebtor-Liability Models

Hon. Gerber, Robert — United States Bankruptcy Court S.D.N.Y. (ret.), Joseph Hage Aaronson LLC
Kimble, Joseph — Cooley Law School (tentative)
Hilsee, Todd – The Hilsee Group LLC
Molton, David — Brown Rudnick LLP

5:00 pm: Adjournment Grab-and-Go Snacks

Attendees

Attendees

Alpert, Jennifer – Rubris, Inc.
Brandt, Joseph — Wilkie Farr & Gallagher LLP
Busch, Lisa Nathanson — Simmons Hanly Conroy LLP
Coleman, Hayden – Dechert, LLP
Hon. Calabrese, Philip — Northern District of Ohio
Davis, Kevin – Caplin & Drysdale
DeLuca, Nicholas — Alvarez & Marsal
Dockterman, Michael – McDermott Will & Schulte
Hon. Fitzgerald, F. Judith — United States Bankruptcy Court W.D.Pa. (ret.), Tucker Arensberg PC
Hon. Gerber, Robert — United States Bankruptcy Court S.D.N.Y. (ret.), Joseph Hage Aaronson LLC
Goodman, Eric — Brown Rudnick LLP
Harris, Robert — Binder Malter Harris and Rome-Banks LLP
Harrison, Kathryn — Campbell & Levine LLC
Hilsee, Todd – The Hilsee Group LLC
Hoeflich, Adam — Bartlit Beck LLP
Honnold, Brad — Goza & Honnold LLC
Hurford, Mark — A. M. Saccullo Legal LLC
Husman, Sam — Greenberg Traurig LLP
Hon. Kaplan, Michael — United States Bankruptcy Court, District of New Jersey
Kimble, Joseph – Cooley Law School
King, Mark — Ankura
Mehta, Anjali — Bevan & Associates LPA
Molton, David — Brown Rudnick LLP
Norman, Lisa — Andrews Myers, PC
Opsitnick, Tim — Executive Vice President and General Counsel, Technology Concepts & Design, Inc. (TCDI)
Hon. Poslusny, Jerrold — United States Bankruptcy Court, District of New Jersey
Prieto, Dan – Jones Day
Prol, Jeffrey — Lowenstein Sandler LLP
Ripley, Edward — Andrews Myers PC
Ruehlmann, Greg – King & Spalding LLP
Saccullo, Anthony — A. M. Saccullo Legal LLC
Hon. Sargus, Edmund — Southern District of Ohio
Michael Shenkman – Bailey & Glasser LLP
Hon. Summerhays, Robert — Western District of Louisiana

Materials

SUMMIT MATERIALS

PANEL 1 — Understanding the Reasons for Tort Lawyers’ Objections to Mass-Tort Bankruptcy and Lifting Stay for Selected Number of Tort Cases to Proceed in Civil Litigation

Highlighted Official Committee Memorandum in Support of Stay Relief Motions and Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany Omnibus Objections to Motions for Relief from Automatic Stays: In re The Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany, New York, Case No. 23-10244, Doc. 1350, Doc. 1413, Northern District of New York, (January 8 and 22, 2025) (Download)

PANEL 2 — Proposed Best Practices, Including Effective Releases of Nondebtors’ Liabilities (Purdue Pharma); Expanding Information on Proof of Claims Form; and Parens Patriae Claims

Draft Proposed Best Practices, Rabiej Litigation Law Center (Download)
Side-by-Side Comparison of Standard-Release Provisions with Restyled Version (Download)
Memorandum from Subcommittee on Business Issues to Advisory Committee on Bankruptcy Rules (August 29, 2025) (Report on Proposed Amendments to Rule 9031 — Special Masters) (Download)

PANEL 3 — Handling Lawyers Contingency Fee Agreements with Individually Retained Clients in MDL-Tort Actions, Including Common-Benefit Fee Wthholdings

Common Benefit Fees in Multidistrict Litigation, Hon. Eldon Fallon, 74 Louisiana Law Review No. 2, p. 371 (2014) (Significant sections highlighyted in yellow, Rabiej Litigation Law Center) (Download)
In Re: Boy Scouts of America and Delaware BSA, LLC, Case No. 20-10343, D. Del. Doc. No. 13181 (October 14, 2025) (Motion to Terminate or Reduce Fees Under Contingency Fee Legal Services Agreements — Significant Passages Highlighted in Yellow) (Download)
In Re: Boy Scouts of America and Delaware BSA, LLC, Case No. 20-10343, D. Del. Doc. No. 13181 (October 30, 2025) (Objections to Motion to Terminate or Reduce Fees Under Contingency Fee Legal Services Agreements — Significant Passages Highlighted in Yellow) (Download)
Two Hypotheticals — Contingency-Lawyer Fees in Mass-Tort MDLs and Mass-Tort Bankruptcies (Download)
In re Syngenta AG Mir 162 Corn Litig., Appellate Case: 19-3008 (10th Cir. Feb. 28, 2023) (affirming district court’s allocation of 90% of contingency fees [49%, 24%, 15%, and 12% respectivey] to three regional pools of law firms and 10% to a pool of iindividually retained private attorneys) (Download)
In Re: Kenneth Plaza, Case 05-32524, Doc. 31 Southern District of Texas (February 23, 2007) (Discussion of Lawyer’s Contingency Fee Based on Quantum Meruit Principles) (Download)
Reasonability of a Creditor’s Claim for Attorney Fees, Comment, Lauren Firestone, 37 Emory Bankruptcy Developments Journal (2020) (Background Information on Contingency Fees in Bankruptcies) (Download)

Panel 4 – Estimating Values of Individual Tort Claims by Assigning Multipliers for More Severe Injuries or Illnesses for Purposes of Voting on Proposed Plan of Reorganization, Instead of Indiscriminately Assigning $1 for Every Claim

In Re Quigley Co., Inc., Case No. 04-15739, Doc. 897, 346 B.R. 647 (SDNY Aug. 9, 2006) (estimating personal-injury claims for voting purposes) (Download)
Rubris, Framework to Evaluate and Apply Mass Tort Claim Valuation (Download)

Panel 5 — Plain-English Summary Notice and Consensual-Release of Nondebtor-Liability Models

Todd Hilsee, Preliminary Draft of Summary Disclosure Notice of Rights and Options in Mass-Tort Bankruptcy, Rabiej Litigation Law Center (Download)
Restyled Versions of Standard Nondebtor-Release Provisions (Download)
In re: Motors Liquidation Co., Case No. 09-50026, Case Management Order #3, Doc. 12625, SDNY Bankruptcy Court (April 22, 2014) (requiring clear formatting to maximize readability) (Download)
Joseph Kimble, Redrafting All the Federal Court Rules: A 30-Year Odyssey, Judicature, Bolch Judicial Institute (2024) (Download)
Joseph Kimble, Links to Two Articles on Restylization of Federal Rules of Bankruptcy Procedure (Download)

Registration

Regular Registration — $950.

Multiple Registrations —Two or more lawyers registering from the same law firm receive discounts (single registrant – $950; second registrant – $750; and third and each additional registrant – $700).

In-House Counsel Discount —The registration fee for in-house counsel whose company does not provide a budget for continuing education and training is $250.

Please check the “Other Registration” box under “Registration Type” and insert the discounted fee amount.