Judge Homer Drake

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Judge W. Homer Drake, Jr. (N.D. Ga.), one of the longest serving U.S. bankruptcy judges in history (over 53 years) and who retired on January 31, 2021, died on Friday at his home in Newnan, Georgia. He was 90. I learned about Judge Drake’s passing from fellow LexBlog blogger and Georgia bankruptcy attorney Scott Riddle who posted Judge Drake’s obituary.

It was just this time last year that I wrapped-up a seven-part tribute to Judge Drake, which included a detailed biographical introduction, followed by six posts that covered Judge Drake’s Top 10 most cited bankruptcy plan confirmation opinions (among over 555 indexed opinions).

I, like so many, will miss Judge Drake. In tribute, here is the series all in one place.

As an update, here is the “Celebration of Life” video for the December 14, 2022 service:

Continue Reading Judge W. Homer Drake, Jr. (1932-2022)

Today we wrap-up our month-long series on Georgia’s Ret. Judge W. Homer Drake, Jr. Click here if you missed the first five posts. In this post, we finally get to Judge Drake’s #1 most cited Chapter 11 confirmation opinion, Metrocraft Publishing, a 37 year old disclosure statement opinion involving Paul Bonapfel before he was Bankruptcy Judge Bonapfel. And if you stick around, we’ve got a bonus paragraph or two about EMD, LLC v. Stabilis Fund II, LLC (2014), a 35 page (!) Till opinion that, while missing inexplicably from Westlaw, might be Judge Drake’s hidden masterpiece on confirmation issues.Continue Reading Judges Series – Judge Homer Drake’s Top 10 Confirmation Opinions – Part 6 (#1)

As you can’t help but know by now, we’ve been covering Georgia’s Ret. Judge W. Homer Drake, Jr. Click here if you missed the first four posts. We’ll wrap-up Judge Drake’s Top 10 Chapter 11 confirmation opinions by Tuesday, with today’s post covering #2. We’re excited to have financial advisor and Till expert Richard Gaudet, of GGG Partners in Atlanta, reverse engineer in this post Judge Drake’s pre-Till analysis 30 years later, because why not? And for some New York Times worthy trivia about Judge Drake’s chambers, see below in the conclusion.Continue Reading Judges Series – Judge Homer Drake’s Top 10 Confirmation Opinions – Part 5 (#2)

(Judge Drake and former SBLI/Drake Prof. Michael Sabbath)

Thanksgiving’s over, Christmas is fast approaching, and we’re finally near the finish line for our first Bankruptcy Judges segment. To start, we’ve been covering Georgia’s Ret. Judge W. Homer Drake, Jr. If you know Judge Drake, then you’ll agree that he’d likely be a little impatient at this point. “Mr. Bury, I think the Court understands your argument. Let’s wrap this up”—is something I heard a few times, especially after a third or fourth “Finally, Your Honor…” To wrap it up then, we’ll cover his three most cited Chapter 11 confirmation opinions by Monday, starting with #3 today. If you missed the introduction, you’ll find it here. We covered #10 through #6 here. And #5 and 4 here and here.Continue Reading Judges Series – Judge Homer Drake’s Top 10 Confirmation Opinions – Part 4 (#3)

(Kate B.’s “Turkey Art”) (2015)

On Thanksgiving no less (one of my favorite days to post), we continue our series about Georgia’s Ret. Judge W. Homer Drake, Jr. I’m running out of neat Judge Drake pictures so we’ll reuse Kate’s (abstract) Thanksgiving art instead.

You can find the introductory post here. After that, we covered the first half of Judge Drake’s Top 10 Chapter 11 confirmation opinions (#10 through #6) here. And then we covered #5 here. Today we’ll just cover #4 because it’s so extensive and I need to pick up our Fincher’s turkey by 11. We’ll wrap it up with the Top 3 by month-end.

With that, here is Judge Drake’s fourth most cited and perhaps his most scholarly and extensive confirmation opinion.Continue Reading Judges Series – Judge Homer Drake’s Top 10 Confirmation Opinions – Part 3 (#4)

We continue this week with our Bankruptcy Judges series. Georgia’s Ret. Judge W. Homer Drake, Jr. is the focus. You can find the introductory post here. Last week we covered the first half of Judge Drake’s Top 10 Chapter 11 confirmation opinions (i.e., #10 through #6). You can find it here. And this week, we continue with the second half. However, rather than combining the #5 to #1 opinions all in one post, we figured we’d experiment with one case per post for a shorter post that’s easier to digest. Here is Judge Drake’s fifth most cited confirmation opinion.Continue Reading Judges Series – Judge Homer Drake’s Top 10 Confirmation Opinions – Part 2 (#5)

A couple of weeks ago, we kicked off a Bankruptcy Judges series, with the first part of the series being devoted to Georgia’s Ret. Judge W. Homer Drake, Jr. While the feedback  has been very positive, I attribute at least 90% of it to readers’ affection for Judge Drake that he earned over 53 years on the bench and 10% or less to my efforts to curate those years into an interesting opening profile. We now turn to the more serious business of covering (some of) Judge Drake’s 555 bankruptcy opinions.

As we encountered in our unlikely bankruptcy profiles of Justice Scalia, Justice Ginsburg, and Justice Gorsuch, transitioning from the profile to the decisions must be, if you’re doing it right, a little underwhelming. Nevertheless, over the next couple of weeks we’ll slice and dice our “JU(Drake)” Westlaw search to find the most educational and interesting parts. In this post, we’ll cover Judge Drake’s most cited confirmation-related Chapter 11 opinions in a Top 10 format.Continue Reading Judges Series – Judge Homer Drake’s Top 10 Confirmation Opinions – Part 1 (#10 to #6)

In what I hope will turn into an ongoing Bankruptcy Judges series, bring Plan Proponent out of an unintentional COVID hiatus, and highlight the blog’s “new look” on the LexBlog platform, this is the kickoff post for a weekly series on Georgia’s very own Hon. W. Homer Drake, Jr., likely the longest or second longest serving bankruptcy judge after 1960, if not in all of U.S. history. As we are prone to focus on, the series will emphasize Judge Drake’s opinions. But first an introduction.

On January 31, 2021, Judge Drake retired after over 53 years on the bench, first as a “referee in bankruptcy” (read: a judge) starting in 1964 and then continuing as a bankruptcy judge starting in 1979. In honor of Judge Drake’s retirement, U.S. District Court Judge Timothy Batten described Judge Drake as “one of the all-time preeminent bankruptcy judges in the United States”—high praise from the “upstairs judge” who often quipped that everyday people in Newnan, Georgia would see them at lunch and assume that Judge Batten was Judge Drake’s law clerk.

Beyond that, though, where do you start? Judge Drake’s resume is unapproachable in its breadth, especially for this Macon lawyer who practiced in front of him for just the last fifth of his tenure. While I’ll do my very best, I’m hoping that our Georgia readers, in particular, will not be bashful about setting me straight or pointing out what I may have missed.Continue Reading Judges Series – Judge Homer Drake’s Bankruptcy Opinions – Introduction