Well-known bankruptcy litigation specialist Jeff Bohm of Austin has been appointed as the new bankruptcy judge for the the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas, Houston Division. Jeff replaces William Greendyke, who resigned effective June 1 to join Houston-based Fulbright & Jaworski.
I have known Jeff for a long time and been involved in several cases with him over the years. He is an outstanding lawyer and will make a fine bankruptcy judge. Although Jeff has been practicing for 20 years and has been a partner at Austin-based McGinniss, Lochridge for 15 years, Jeff’s background is interesting in that he did not go directly to law school after undergraduate school. Rather, he chose to work for several years for a large bank in Houston in a variety of positions. I believe that this background is a part of the reason why Jeff has an unusual depth of perspective regarding financial and insolvency-related disputes, and also why he developed a resolution-oriented style of lawyering in his practice (I have found that lawyers who were formerly clients tend to prefer this style). Although an effective litigator, Jeff has always had a refreshing knack for resolving legal disputes in the most efficient and reasonable manner possible under the circumstances.
Jeff joins what has become a powerhouse group of bankruptcy judges in the Southern District of Texas. As noted earlier here, outstanding Houston bankruptcy lawyer Marvin Isgur joined chief Bankruptcy Judge Karen Brown and Bankruptcy Judges Wesley Steen and Letitia Clark on the Houston bankruptcy bench earlier this year. With the additions of Judges Isgur and Bohm, the Houston bankruptcy judges are one of the strongest groups of bankruptcy judges in any one federal district in the country.
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Close to half of today’s law students seem to have worked before going back to school. It’s probably 50-60% at UH. Is it really the fact of Judge Bohm’s prior work experience that you find noteworthy, or the type of work he did?
In my experience, I have generally found prior work experience before law school to be extremely beneficial, particularly for lawyers who go into business litigation or corporate legal positions. Jeff’s business experience was particularly helpful to his legal career in several ways. For example, many of his client representatives were folks who worked in positions similar to the ones that Jeff had, so that gave him special insight (and probably empathy) into their perspective. Even more importantly, Jeff’s business background gave him experience with customers, who ended up being defendants in many of the legal matters he handled for his banking clients. I have always admired Jeff’s ability to remain courteous and businesslike with his client’s customers, no matter how difficult the legal matter. Jeff developed a part of that admirable quality while working in banking.