Collier Family Law and the Bankruptcy Code

Henry J. Sommer is a leading authority on consumer bankruptcy law and has litigated many major cases involving bankruptcy, consumer law, civil rights and other issues. He is the President of the National Consumer Bankruptcy Rights Center. He has served in the past as head of the Consumer Law Project at Community Legal Services in Philadelphia and as the Supervising Attorney at the pro bono Consumer Bankruptcy Assistance Project in Philadelphia. Mr. Sommer has been a Lecturer-in-Law at the University of Pennsylvania Law School and an adjunct professor at Temple University School of Law. Mr. Sommer is the author of Collier Consumer Bankruptcy Practice Guide (Matthew Bender), Consumer Bankruptcy Law and Practice (Nat'l Consumer Law Center),and numerous articles on bankruptcy law. He is co-author of Collier Family Law and the Bankruptcy Code (Matthew Bender). Together with Richard Levin, Mr. Sommer serves as Editor-in-Chief of Collier on Bankruptcy (16th ed.). Mr. Sommer is an elected member of the American Law Institute and the National Bankruptcy Conference. In addition, he is an elected Fellow of the American College of Bankruptcy. He is a former president of the National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys, former Chair of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania Bankruptcy Conference and a former member of the Federal Reserve Board Consumer Advisory Council. Mr. Sommer was the first recipient of the National Consumer Law Center's Vern Countryman Consumer Law Award. He received his legal education from Harvard Law School (J.D., cum laude).

Margaret Dee McGarity was a United States Bankruptcy Judge for the Eastern District of Wisconsin from 1987 until 2016. From 2003 until 2010, she served as chief bankruptcy judge. Judge McGarity was in private practice before her appointment, concentrating primarily in the areas of bankruptcy, family law and marital property, and she served on the panel of chapter 7 trustees. Judge McGarity is a frequent lecturer on various marital property and bankruptcy related topics, especially on the interrelationships between family law and the Bankruptcy Code, having participated in seminars sponsored by the Federal Judicial Center, National Conference of Bankruptcy Judges, American Bankruptcy Institute, State Bar of Wisconsin, Supreme Court of Wisconsin (Judicial Education Division), National Child Support Enforcement Association, National Judicial College, National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys, and various bar associations, among others. She is a co-author of Christiansen, Haberman, Haydon, Kinnamon, McGarity & Wilcox, Marital Property Law in Wisconsin (State Bar of Wis.), a three-volume treatise on Wisconsin’s community property laws last updated in 2010. She is also the author of articles published by the ABA Journal, NAB Talk, NACTT Quarterly and other publications dealing with the practical aspects of bankruptcy practice. She is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Emory University, 1969, and a 1974 graduate of the University of Wisconsin Law School. She is a member of the National Conference of Bankruptcy Judges, American Bankruptcy Institute, National Association of Women Judges, the American College of Bankruptcy and the Thomas E. Fairchild American Inn of Court.