A dozen academics, including Professors Ralph Brubaker and Robert Lawless, are urging the United States Bankruptcy Court to abolish the two-judge panel on a south Texas bankruptcy court that has earned a reputation as a key venue for large bankruptcy cases. The letter from the legal scholars to Chief Judge Eduardo V. Rodriguez comes as a result of media reports about undisclosed relationships between Judge David R. Jones and parties that appeared in his Texas bankruptcy court. Jones was the chief judge who created the two-judge panel to oversee complex cases, which was established in part because of “judge shopping” by companies within Texas’s jurisdiction. The two-judge panel became a target for the same practices, however, leading to “controversy and criticism for undermining public confidence in the chapter 11 system,” as the letter to Judge Rodriguez states.
