The Status Conference

I had a good afternoon. This afternoon I had a status conference in bankruptcy court for an adversary proceeding we are defending. An adversary proceeding is what the bankruptcy court calls a lawsuit. The debtor has sued my client for a preference. A preference claim is a lawsuit to have a payment that was made under certain circumstances undone.

This is one of the reasons I don't talk about my work much. What I do tends to be technical and complicated sometimes even to me.

Anyway, my client received a huge sum of money from a company about 10 days before that company went into bankruptcy, now they want that money back. I have all sorts of valid legal reasons why my client shouldn't have to give the money back.

A status conference is where the judge meets with the parties to see the "status" of the lawsuit and usually when he or she establishes deadlines and sets a trial date. Defendants, such as my client, always want delay. Plaintiffs, such as the debtor, usually want a trial date in a few weeks. It's a constant struggle.

The lawyer on the other side is probably in his sixties. He has been a lawyer a long time, probably 30 years or more, and I have met him several times in several different situations. He ALWAYS acts like we've never met before. I don't think he'll make that mistake again.

I was recently at lunch with one of the partners from my firm when this Fat Fucker came walking by. He stopped, glanced at me but didn't acknowledge me otherwise, spoke to the partner, shook his hand and moved on. I wondered aloud then, "why do men do that, who do you suppose he thought I was?"

Today the status conference was at 3:30. The Fat Fucker was late. He came sweeping into the room. I was in a chair by the door. I was impossible to miss. I spoke, "hello Mr. Fat Fucker" and stood up as he breezed past. He glanced at me, squinted his piggy eyes and barely nodded in acknowledgement that I had spoken as he walked past me to report to the judge's secretary his arrival. He only acknowledged my existence as the judge was walking into the room to usher us into his conference room for the conference.

I got what I wanted at the status conference.

The judge said he wasn't going to give me six months to do discovery. Instead he did the next best thing, and set no deadlines and reset the status conference for mid-November.

I tossed out legal issues which needed to be addressed (hence the need for delay) and made the Fat Fucker look like a simpleton who didn't have a good grasp of the legal issues involved in his lawsuit. The Court imposed a deadline for the Fat Fucker to address one of my legal issues.

I dominated that proceeding and left that Fat Fucker wondering what had happened to him.

I would have felt bad about how well it went, if he hadn't been such a smuck.