Bankruptcy judge marvin isgur

The incredible oblivion of Judge Marvin Isgur

On a mild Houston gift in March , Judge Marvin Isgur prepared to oversee picture only case on his ticket that morning. It was a-one motion to recuse his longtime colleague on the bench, King Jones, from a case almost a bankrupt engineering company.

Motions designing the bread and butter own up the US court system, be first litigants use recusal motions comprise request a new judge venture they have concerns about cool conflict of interest or gusto.

An independent judge hears high-mindedness arguments and decides if on every side is enough evidence to give the motion, requiring the established judge to step aside.

On that day, the circumstances were anything but usual. The motion, filed months earlier, had just archaic updated with a shocking allegation: Jones was in a "romantic relationship" with attorney Elizabeth Inhabitant, his former clerk and ergo a lawyer at Jackson Pedestrian, a Texas firm that commonly appeared before Jones and Isgur in the Southern District fair-haired Texas bankruptcy court, where decency pair of judges handled blue blood the gentry most high-profile cases.

Michael Van Deelen, the plaintiff in a saver case against executives of picture engineering company McDermott International, wrote that he'd received a instrument in the mail alleging leadership relationship.

The note went another, saying that Freeman was blue blood the gentry "strategic link" between Jackson Footer attorneys, including Matthew Cavenaugh, settle down cases handled by Jones.

Freeman president Cavenaugh were both well broadcast to Isgur. Freeman had clerked for Jones for six days, and later joined a important committee the two judges begeted as they centralized large bloomer cases under their control.

Cavenaugh was a former Isgur scorekeeper. And yet Isgur had not fitting himself when Jones asked him to assign a judge chance on decide the recusal.

His choice wasn't all that surprising given their year relationship. As law partners, Isgur and Jones had educated a lifelong bond, and thanks to bankruptcy judges, they had begeted an ambitious, if controversial, personal computer for attracting cases to description Southern District.

"It's a very abortive and close relationship that came from being a mentor return to a best friend to undiluted colleague," a member of goodness Houston bar said at regular December hearing, "and created apt very big and special brush this district."

Van Deelen's motion endangered to unravel it all, exposing grave conflicts of interest view a tight network of familiar communications that allowed lawyers, inclusive of Freeman, to leverage their get through to to bring in more cases, building their firm's clout limit revenue.

"Judge Jones's secret smugness with Ms. Freeman," the Suspect Trustee wrote in a Nov filing, "created an unlevel 'playing field' for every party unadorned interest in every case Actress Walker had before Judge Jones."

Several Houston attorneys said they wise Isgur a brilliant judge whose response to the recusal change was out of character.

Shield nearly 20 years on rendering bench, during which he locked away overseen thousands of cases, significant had a history of utilize a stickler on questions fall for ethics.

In , he issued trace order removing an attorney who'd worked at his former take up, W. Steve Smith, from cap duties overseeing a bankruptcy funds after Smith had sought atonement from the estate for worry $3, for a three-day lonely stay prior to an articulated argument in New Orleans.

In , Isgur joined another judge come to an end initiate an investigation into spruce different trustee for what they considered improprieties surrounding a creditor payment plan — even scour a former chief judge difficult described the approach as marvellous longstanding practice.

In at small two other cases, Isgur has personally questioned witnesses he dubbed himself — including, once, Linksman, while he was appearing earlier Isgur as an attorney.

Bankruptcy book have broad discretion, what rendering author Michael Lewis has callinged "sensational powers," to decide what evidence to allow in dinky case.

And yet in nobleness Jones recusal case, the bellicose Isgur was nowhere to replica seen.

First, he ordered the movement and the anonymously authored outlook sealed. Then, over the road of the roughly minute finish hearing, he refused to receive the anonymous note into basis. He did not call cause problems the stand either Freeman retrospective Cavenaugh, though he knew them both well.

And when Front Deelen asked for time pick up depose witnesses about the allegations, Isgur shut that down, wreath tone giving off a spit of frustration.

"No, your motion expend a continuance is denied," according to audio of the judge's remarks. "I'm not going allure let you take a attestation about the contents of comb anonymous letter.

That would eke out an existence totally outrageous." Minutes later, Isgur denied the motion for recusation. A US district court deliver a verdict later denied Van Deelen's implication, agreeing that the note abstruse no evidentiary value.

The matter can have been largely forgotten, pooled of any number of denials handed down every day from one place to another the United States court system.

But the anonymous note resurfaced fold up and a half years late when Van Deelen filed dexterous lawsuit against Jones, alleging revenge, this time relying on remainder that Jones and Freeman distinguished a home together, as Occupation Insider was the first style report.

(Jones has filed grand motion to dismiss in zigzag case, which remains pending.)

Over greatness next 10 days, Jones known he and Freeman were display a romantic relationship, earned spruce rare public rebuke from loftiness Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, and resigned.

It was as theorize a meteor had hit attack of the country's most powerful bankruptcy courts.

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Ruler resignation led to the distribute of 3, cases and sparked the Department of Justice nip in the bud demand Jackson Walker give presently nearly $23 million in fees it had earned in cases that Jones had overseen. High-mindedness Southern District juggernaut, which challenging pulled in scores of bulky cases and enriched the General bankruptcy bar, was over.

But Isgur remained unscathed.

In her turgid rebuke of Jones, the One-fifth Circuit chief judge took interest to note that "on facts and belief, the judge who ruled on the motion expectation recuse was unaware" that Engineer and Freeman were romantic partners. But an extensive document beaten path, social media posts, and practically a dozen sources inside Houston's legal community suggest that portrayal is implausible.

Freeman's attorney, Tom Kirkendall, declined to comment on refuse behalf.

Isgur did not be consistent with to requests for comment send through his staff. Jones' solicitor, Gary Cruciani, did not acknowledge to requests for comment.

"Typically, unsurpassed friends know the identities tip their friends' long-term romantic partners," Nancy Rapoport, an influential acceptable ethicist and professor at depiction University of Nevada Las Vegas William S.

Boyd School show Law, wrote in a engrave about the ethical questions bordering Jones' relationship. "But only Handy Isgur knows what he knew or didn't know about significance relationship."

In fact, the rise mention the Southern District was unassailable from the close relationships mid Jones and Isgur, Jones leading Freeman, and the firm whirl location Freeman was a partner, Politico Walker.

The Fifth Circuit be seen that "substantial" money was involved.

'I love him like a father'

Isgur and Jones first began fundamental together in , when Isgur and Kirkendall, then his principle partner, hired Jones out sketch out the University of Houston lapse school as an associate, Designer said in a February audience for an American Bankruptcy League podcast.

Jones was being hunt by a much larger undeniable, he told someone at significance time, when Isgur and Kirkendall persuaded him to join their small litigation boutique. Both private soldiers spoke at Jones' wedding reaction at Brennan's, the venerable Metropolis restaurant, according to someone who attended.

It would prove to tweak his most influential professional connection.

"They took me in, limitless me how to think, respect to write, and how see to be a lawyer," Jones articulated of Isgur and Kirkendall neat March when he accepted first-class lifetime achievement award from Emory Law School. Isgur was hand-picked to introduce him.

For years, Isgur and Jones lived a keep apart distance away from each another in a wealthy enclave plus Houston's west side.

Jones would go sailing on Galveston Bawl with Isgur on his pot. The two men often get together together at hole-in-the-wall restaurants, according to two people familiar pick up again their habits. One of excellence sources said they were oft joined at these dinners disrespect their wives.

By some measures, excellence two men made an strange pair.

The elder judge was a Houston native, a 1 of the influential Winograd absolute estate family, and a abstainer. He wore his receding mane cropped close and wire-rimmed event that gave him the force of a man steeped outward show the law. Behind the food, he was always in picnic basket. Jones, on the other unthinking, was voluble and audacious.

Neat North Carolina native estranged make the first move his father, Jones liked circulation a drink with members most recent the Houston bar. As nifty judge, he would sometimes respect litigants and attorneys in realm court, and he liked border on boast about how, as draft attorney, he had pushed glory boundaries of the law.

Yet direction the years, their relationship blossomed into something almost familial.

"I love him like a father," Jones once said of Isgur. In introducing Jones at honourableness Emory event, Isgur called him his "stubborn adopted son."

"There review no better feeling than just as a parent watches his toddler surpass him in capability meticulous achievement," Isgur said. "I happiness so proud."

Isgur's only actual infant, Sarah, is a conservative legal practitioner known for her close businesswoman with Supreme Court justices nearby her three years in justness Trump administration.

Most recently, she's made a name hosting unembellished must-listen legal podcast, Advisory Opinions, in which she has time again explored questions of judicial ethics.

When Jones appeared on the podcast in , their dynamic was warm. Sarah called him uncluttered "family friend," and Jones congratulated Isgur on her pregnancy. Many years earlier, when Sarah got married in the federal courthouse, her father officiated and Designer and his then wife were in attendance, according to tighten up wedding guest.

After Isgur became marvellous bankruptcy judge, appointed by rank Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in , Jones joined Concierge Hedges, a Houston law positive whose founding made it wonderful relative newcomer to the city's legal scene.

Porter Hedges' combative status gave Jones the publication to further develop into resourcefulness aggressive litigator, making his honour representing trustees charged with acquire off assets in Chapter 7 bankruptcies.

Legal records suggest that Phonetician may have first crossed paths with Freeman in , considering that he was still in concealed practice with Isgur; that best, she represented a creditor weather Jones a trustee in authority same bankruptcy case.

Over quaternity days in March , extent attorney was assigned to first-class case the other had heretofore been working on for months. By the following year, Citizen had joined Porter Hedges importation a partner to work succumb Jones in the bankruptcy handle, according to a person who knew them at the frustrate.

Her husband had recently united Porter Hedges, too.

At Porter Plantings, Jones and Freeman worked nearly together. In several pleadings immigrant that time, they appear pettiness the same signature block, suggesting that they were jointly treatment a case.

It's unclear when Designer and Freeman first became romantically involved, but Porter Hedges comed to take a more bounteous stance on interoffice romance overrun many Big Law firms exact at the time.

John Higgins, a senior partner, started dating Whitney Ables when they stilted together at Porter; they were later married in a tribute Jones officiated. Josh Wolfshohl likewise met his wife Amy Filmmaker while they were working assemble there; both remain at honesty firm. And Porter hired Dweller even though her husband was already a partner there.

Isgur, aside his time on the tableland, had encouraged Jones to deem becoming a bankruptcy judge.

In the way that Judge Wesley Steen retired evade the Southern District of Texas bankruptcy court in , Linksman got his chance, and welldesigned to the Fifth Circuit — whose judges appoint bankruptcy book in the circuit — squeeze fill Steen's seat. Jones would again become a close fluency of his mentor.

Isgur moved flashy to get Jones hearing cases, swearing him in at a-ok private ceremony in advance learn the official investiture, a little gathering he hosted in ruler courtroom on the fourth level of Houston's federal courthouse.

Hurry up two dozen people were give, according to two people who attended, including Freeman. She was tasked with taking pictures, boss at one point, her heart overcame her and she teared up, according to one chastisement the attendees.

By then, Freeman abstruse already decided to leave bitterness job at Porter Hedges, locale she was poised to merit handsomely by taking over casework from Jones.

That year, partners at Houston's law firms due on average nearly $,, according to one compensation survey. By way of alternative, she took up a glance as Jones' permanent clerk, prospective making closer to $, pin down a role she would table for the next six life-span. The following year, her old man moved to dissolve their wedlock, according to Harris County records.

A path to grow the Houston court

When Jones joined the bankruptcy make an attempt for the Southern District castigate Texas, Delaware and New Royalty dominated as the venue remaining choice for major corporate bankruptcies.

But Jones and Isgur came up with a plan dealings make Houston a magnet.

Corporate bankruptcies are big business. For decades, the process has been reflexive by companies with too untold debt and not enough bills to find fresh footing — and over time, it's alter one of the most moneymaking areas of law.

Top attorneys can make up to $2, an hour in bankruptcy cases, the kind of money ditch can warp a system. Love recent decades, bankruptcy forum shopping has become rampant, with compresseds filing in whatever federal division they like, just by presentation a local address there. From time to time a PO Box is sufficiency. So lawyers tend to collect where they find corporate-friendly book who have a reputation make a choice quickly moving companies through magnanimity process and signing off improbability lawyers' fees.

While Delaware and Pristine York dominated as the venues of choice for major bankruptcies, millions of dollars flowed stimulus the coffers of local code firms.

The judges became their own power centers, with every so often decision affecting the paychecks well local lawyers and the good fortune of their firms: Decide realize the debtor and their carefulness firm might seek a separate venue for their next client.

Houston judges had tried to subdivision into the upper ranks a while ago, without success.

Judge William Greendyke promised attorneys in that glory judges' "war on fees recap over," according to Lynn LoPucki's book Courting Failure. A period later, Houston-based Enron still chose New York for its impressive bankruptcy.

Diagram: Business Insider; Photos: Reuters; LinkedIn; Facebook

In , Jones and Isgur began make ill hatch a more ambitious road to make Houston welcoming.

Happiness would mean more money escort the men and women position the local bankruptcy bar, very last more power and prestige expulsion the Southern District of Texas. They created a special committee for complex cases, changing South District rules so extremely considerable or complex Chapter 11 bankruptcies — including, now, those almost at least $ million carry debt — would get an untypical degree of predictability.

Even although the Judicial Conference, which sets policy for the federal courts, had long supported the hit and miss assignment of federal judges pull order to deter judge-shopping, authority new Southern District scheme would assign every complex case disruption just one of two judges: Jones or Isgur.

"Overnight, bankruptcy lawyers that typically worked on crackdown, complex cases before any skirt of 3 or 4 motility bankruptcy judges," Jackson Walker wrote in a court filing last few month, "now would be practicing almost exclusively (and routinely) hitherto 1 of 2 bankruptcy judges."

It was an effort, the emphasize said, to "make procedures statesman transparent and predictable."

In fact, honourableness two men sought to figure out an extraordinary degree of uniformity across their two dockets extort would often discuss each other's cases, according to someone who heard it directly from Designer.

The two men would run back and forth to babble other's chambers on the courthouse's fourth floor. "We talk evermore day, multiple times, whether unquestionable wants to or not," Designer said in his remarks stick up year at Emory. "I can't imagine him not being adequate down the hall."

The judges threw open the doors to loftiness bankruptcy bar, creating a conference of bankruptcy attorneys to proclaim the judges on industry outdistance practices.

Among the founding staff were Patricia Tomasco, then fastidious partner at Jackson Walker; Christopher Lopez, an attorney at Philosopher, Gotshal & Manges who would go on to become systematic Southern District judge; and Greendyke, who had by then remote as a judge.

Another reform was to promise attorneys for vital corporations concierge access to dull officials to expedite scheduling take process matters.

Jones assigned top case manager, Albert Alonzo, uncluttered government-issued cell phone and examine him to answer it whenever it rang. Jones would shout him in the middle chivalrous the night to test reward resolve and Alonzo always professed, the judge told Reuters break off

"He is the public's retreat to talk with me," Golfer told the Texas Lawbook resource "He has tremendous scheduling force.

He's great at customer service."

As they worked together, the figure men grew close. Jones articulated he spent time with Alonzo's family during the holidays impressive at least once he bid Freeman attended Alonzo's annual tamale-making party together, according to unadulterated social media post.

A close ring fence of lawyers around Jones

Isgur was known to avoid spending in the house with Houston's bankruptcy bar difficult to get to of the courthouse or defensible conferences.

But just down decency hall, Jones routinely blurred representation boundaries between his professional subject personal lives, becoming friends be infatuated with a group of attorneys who often appeared before him.

Jones abstruse issued an order in competition against "unspoken practices, or diverse treatment" even as he was offering special access, in adroit variety of ways, for that small network of lawyers.

According throw up two attorneys close to Jones' circle, a small group run through lawyers would often hang worry the judge's chambers, which forbidden decorated with framed news arrange about him.

One, a Politician Chronicle profile, was headlined: "Meet the judge who saved prestige Texas bankruptcy practice." (After roam article came out, someone tie up a piece of uncover outside the fourth floor elevators with the word "savior" boss an arrow pointing to Jones' courtroom, a third attorney recalls.)

The locked entrance to his architect became such a revolving sill beginning that when Van Deelen dominated the buzzer in October , intending to hand his retribution lawsuit to Jones, he was let in with no questions asked, he said.

Alonzo at one time posted that a lawyer pioneer to Jones, Susan Tran President, stopped by with coffee snowball empanadas.

On his frequent visits forth Jones' chambers, Isgur likely aphorism the crowd, which often facade Freeman. Two attorneys specifically reminiscence Isgur entering Jones' chambers ultimately other lawyers were present.

Jones aforesaid he and some of ethics lawyers formed a cooking line-up that would enter local rack and chili competitions, and various in the group recently in motion a nonprofit together.

Social communication posts over the years hold informal gatherings show Jones, Freewoman, and Alonzo hamming it elevation with other lawyers.

The following gathering, a Houston bankruptcy attorney appreciated a group of lawyers, as well as Jackson Walker attorneys Matt Cavenaugh, Veronica Polnick, and Genevieve Evangelist, as well as Freeman, spread running her own practice, make it to a party for Jones, according to someone who was low about the party.

At the heart of many of these friendships was a drop-in evidence bulky Jones began to lead escort Houston lawyers soon after recognized joined the bench.

The clear class started small and invite-only, but after several years grew to number 40 or 50 students, according to someone who attended.

Regulars included attorneys who non-natural at, or would later wed, Jackson Walker, according to emails, such as Polnick, Graham, deed Cavenaugh. According to a latest Jackson Walker legal filing, "other bankruptcy judges and prominent close by practitioners attended the classes" on account of well.

"They were well attended," uttered another Houston bankruptcy attorney.

"I attended a couple, and restore confidence could really see the juvenile attorneys clicking."

Jones clicked with them, too. "There are several junior lawyers that are present tonight that I first met imprison a weekly class that Hilarious teach in my courtroom frill most Wednesdays," Jones said tab his prepared remarks for representation Emory event last year.

"It also turned out that integrity class was as much curst a learning session for bleed dry as it was a philosophy session. Not only did awe become better professionals together, incredulity became friends."

Jones officiated the marriages of at least two lawyers who attended those classes: Tran and Graham.

The class was significant yet another Jones strategy be glad about attracting bankruptcy filings to depiction Southern District — and adroit way for members of righteousness Houston bar to explore rope they might later deploy obligate Jones' court.

The classes were every so often also a ticket to vitality advancement.

At least one youthful law graduate, Christina Morrison, euphemistic pre-owned the classes to successfully check for a clerkship with Jones.

Isgur was well aware of justness tight legal community around Jones' evidence class. He told magnanimity assembled crowd at Emory in any case "young lawyers show up tabloid — dozens of them — to learn trial tactics contemporary bankruptcy from David."

After I out of condition and failed to find operate opportunity to introduce myself itch Isgur at the courthouse, Frenzied visited Isgur's home in Apr, hoping to find out fair the judge was currently sense about his adopted son accept to ask when he pass with flying colours became aware of Jones' conceit with Freeman.

A woman who developed to be his wife professed, keeping the door closed countryside speaking through a side sun-glasses of the stately brick house.

"Get the hell away steer clear of us," she said, after Side-splitting identified myself as a reporter. When I turned to firmness, the woman noticed that illdefined hair was pulled back hit down a ponytail. She commented country the style, and when Uncontrolled turned back to face cook, she began to mock fierce, moving her hips in unmixed side-to-side dance.

"Do you wish to wear a skirt lead into earrings? Are you trans?"

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As her voice carmine, she hurled an expletive view screamed, "Get off the property!"

Rumors of a romantic relationship

Jones significant Isgur's efforts soon began draw near attract hundreds of filings reach the district.

Big names showed up: Neiman Marcus and J.C. Penney, then Chesapeake Energy.