Collier Forms Manual

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).

Hon. Kevin J. Carey has served on the Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware since December 9, 2005 (as chief judge from 2008 to 2011), having first been appointed as a bankruptcy judge for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania on January 25, 2001. Judge Carey is on the Executive Committee of the Board of the American Bankruptcy Institute, is a past Global Chairman of the Turnaround Management Association, and a member of the National Conference of Bankruptcy Judges. Judge Carey is the Third Circuit representative on the Administrative Office’s Bankruptcy Judges Advisory Group and a member of the Third Circuit Judicial Council’s Facilities and Security Committee. He is a contributing author to Collier on Bankruptcy. Judge Carey is also a part-time adjunct professor in the LL.M. in Bankruptcy program at St. John’s University School of Law in New York City, New York and at Temple University’s Beasley School of Law in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He began his legal career in 1979 as law clerk to Bankruptcy Judge Thomas M. Twardowski, and then served as Clerk of Court of the Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. Judge Carey received his J.D. in 1979 from the Villanova University School of Law and his B.A. in 1976 from The Pennsylvania State University.

Richard Levin is a Co-head of Jenner & Block LLP’s Restructuring and Bankruptcy Practice, practicing in the New York City office. Mr. Levin's practice concentrates on corporate restructuring, insolvency and bankruptcy issues. From 1975 to 1978, Mr. Levin served as counsel to a subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee, where he was one of the principal authors of the Bankruptcy Reform Act of 1978. Mr. Levin is a member and former Chair of the National Bankruptcy Conference, a select organization of bankruptcy professionals that has acted as an informal advisor to Congress on bankruptcy law since the mid-1930s. He is also a Fellow of the American College of Bankruptcy and a former member of its Board of Trustees (2007–2009). Mr. Levin also served as Faculty at the Federal Judicial Center (2001-present) and as a Lecturer in Law at Harvard Law School (2004, 2006). Together with Henry J. Sommer, Mr. Levin serves as Editor-in-Chief of Collier on Bankruptcy (16th ed.). Mr. Levin received an S.B. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1972, and a J.D. from Yale Law School in 1975.

Pauline K. Morgan has practiced business bankruptcy law since graduating from law school in 1987 and has practiced at Young Conaway Stargatt & Taylor, LLP in Wilmington, Delaware, since 1997. As a partner in the firm’s Bankruptcy & Corporate Restructuring Section, she has represented debtors, creditors’ committees and secured lenders in some of the nation’s largest chapter 11 cases. She has served as chair of the firm’s Bankruptcy and Corporate Restructuring section and as a member of the firm’s management committee since 2011. Ms. Morgan is a member of the Delaware, New York, Pennsylvania and New Jersey bars and also is a member of the American Bankruptcy Institute, the Turnaround Management Association, the Association of Insolvency and Restructuring Advisors, and many other professional organizations. She was appointed by the Chief Judge of the Third Circuit Court of Appeals to serve on the most recent Merit Selection Committee for bankruptcy judges in the District of Delaware. Ms. Morgan has been recognized by Best Lawyers of America as a leading bankruptcy practitioner in Delaware and ranked in the top tier by Chambers USA: America’s Leading Lawyers for Business, which notes that she is “a highly respected figure in the Delaware market”. In 2015, Ms. Morgan was inducted as a Fellow of the American College of Bankruptcy, and in 2016 she became a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation. She received her B.A. from Duquesne University and her J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania Law School.