CHAPTER 7 | § 727 DEFENSE | 2020–2023
Represented an individual debtor in a Chapter 7 case (Case No. 20-30238), filed March 3, 2020 in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of California. Debtor’s schedules listed over $21 million of debt. The Chapter 7 case generated an unusually heavy litigation posture: the firm defended the debtor in six separate adversary proceedings brought against her within the main bankruptcy case — a volume of adversary litigation that would have ended most Chapter 7 cases in either a denial of discharge or a negotiated stipulation sacrificing key assets.
The most consequential of those adversaries was a complaint under 11 U.S.C. § 727 seeking to deny the debtor her discharge altogether — the harshest remedy available against a Chapter 7 debtor, and one that, if granted, would have left the debtor permanently liable for every pre-petition debt. The firm prevailed in that § 727 action, preserved the debtor’s right to a discharge, and — after roughly three years of contested litigation across the six proceedings — obtained the debtor’s Chapter 7 discharge on May 10, 2023.
Result: Prevailed on § 727 discharge-denial action; successfully defended six adversary proceedings; Chapter 7 discharge entered (May 10, 2023)
U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Northern District of California
