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Board of Directors
Mary Beth Ausbrooks, Esq, Board Member
Nashville, Tennesse
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Mary Beth Ausbrooks practices in Nashville and is a partner in the consumer debtor firm of Rothschild & Ausbrooks, PLLC. She is a board certified Consumer Bankruptcy Specialist and has been certified as such by the Tennessee Supreme Court and the American Board of Certification. She has served as the Tennessee State Chair for the National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys and presently is a member of its Board of Directors. She is also a member of the Board of Directors for the American Board of Certification.
Ms. Ausbrooks has served as President, Vice-President and Secretary for the Middle Tennessee Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys. She has been recognized as a Super Lawyer and was named a Mid South Rising Star for 2010. She has offered several presentations on best practices for consumer debtor attorneys and on other aspects of the consumer debtor practice. Ms. Ausbrooks is admitted to practice in the District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals and the United States Supreme Court. She received her J.D. in 1996 from the University of Memphis.
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Ed Boltz, Esq, Board Member
Durham, North Carolina
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*Secretary*
Edward C. Boltz is a member of the Law Offices of John T. Orcutt, P.C., where he has managed the firm’s office in Durham, North Carolina since 1998, representing clients in not only Chapter 13 and Chapter 7 bankruptcies, but also in related consumer rights litigation, including fighting abusive mortgage practices.
Mr. Boltz received his B.A. from Washington University in St. Louis in 1993 and his J.D. from George Washington University in 1996. He is a member of the North Carolina State Bar, where he has been certified as a specialist in consumer bankruptcy law. He is admitted to practice before the Districts Courts in both the Eastern and Middle Districts of North Carolina.
In addition to serving on the Board of Directors for NACBA, where he is jointly responsible for directing the State Chair program, Mr. Boltz serves on the Bankruptcy Council for the North Carolina Bar Association and previously served as the Bankruptcy Chair for the North Carolina Association of Trial Lawyers. Mr. Boltz moderated the panel, “Military Members Deep in Debt”, at the 2007 NACBA Convention. Mr. Boltz served as the Convention Chair for the 2008 NACBA Convention in Hollywood, as well as moderating a panel on Basic Bankruptcy Issues.
In April 2008, Mr. Boltz testified on behalf of NACBA in Congress regarding the need for changes to the bankruptcy code to protect National Guard and Reservists returning from Iraq and Afghanistan from the harsh results of the Means Test, which was enacted as the National Guard and Reservists Debt Relief Act.
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Professor Jean Braucher, Board Member
Tucson, AZ
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Jean Braucher is Roger C. Henderson Professor of Law at the University of Arizona, James E. Rogers College of Law, where she teaches bankruptcy, commercial law and contracts. Her scholarship focuses on consumer aspects of these subjects, and she is a frequent lecturer on consumer bankruptcy topics. She was the 2008 chair of the Section on Creditors’ and Debtors’ Rights of the Association of American Law Schools. She has conducted two empirical studies concerning consumer bankruptcy, one on the impact of debtor education in bankruptcy, funded by the American Bankruptcy Institute, and another on local legal culture in the counseling practices of consumer debtors’ lawyers. She serves on the NACBA amicus brief committee. She has been active in law reform work in commercial law as a member of the American Bar Association and the American Law Institute. She has been a member of the Advisory Board of the American Bankruptcy Institute Law Review and a peer reviewer for the American Bankruptcy Law Journal. She has been a visiting professor at Cornell Law School, the University of Texas School of Law, Boston College School of Law and the Cardozo School of Law, Yeshiva University.
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William E. Brewer, Jr., Esq, Board Member
Raleigh, North Carolina
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*President*
William E. Brewer, Jr. graduated from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill with an A.B. in Economics in 1973, and with a J.D. with honors in 1976. Mr. Brewer served as law clerk to Judge R.A. Hedrick of the North Carolina Court of Appeals before beginning private practice in 1977. Certified as a specialist in consumer bankruptcy law by the North Carolina State Bar, Mr. Brewer has represented the debtors in the series of "Sears" cases in the Eastern District of North Carolina, dealing with the effect of purchase money security interests in bankruptcy cases.
Mr. Brewer has been a NACBA member since 1993, a NACBA Director since 1997, and has served as a popular panelist at NACBA's previous conventions. Mr. Brewer served as NACBA's Vice President from 2007 through 2010, and is currently NACBA's President. |
John C. Colwell, Esq, Board Member
San Diego, California
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Mr. Colwell maintains his practice at the Law Offices of John C. Colwell, a P.L.C. d/b/a Debt Relief Legal Clinic of San Diego County, where he has worked exclusively in the field of consumer bankruptcy since 1989. He manages a practice averaging 30 Ch. 7 and 10 Ch. 13 consumer bankruptcy cases per month. Under his guidance, his firm filed the first “electronic” Ch. 7 bankruptcy case in San Diego, and his firm is the largest filer of cases filed via the internet in San Diego (over 6300 Ch. 7 and Ch. 13's filed electronically as of 3/06).
Mr. Colwell received his B.A. Degree in Philosophy from Ripon College in Ripon, WI in 1977; and his J. D. degree from California Western School of Law in San Diego, CA in 1984. He is a member of the State Bar of California (1985) and is admitted to practice before the U.S. District Court (Southern District of CA), the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, and
the Supreme Court of the United States.
Mr Colwell is a member and a Director on the Board of the National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys, as well as a member of the following: 9th Circuit Information Technology and Telecommunications Committee, National Assoc. of Ch. 13 Trustees, American Bar Association, Federal Bar Association, American Bankruptcy Institute, National Association of Bankruptcy Trustees, San Diego County Bar Association (Bankruptcy Section), and the California and San Diego Bankruptcy Forums.
Mr. Colwell has participated on many panels regarding the representation of debtors, on a variety of subjects, and venues, including NACBA, NACTT, Visa USA, Inc., Toyota Motor Credit, Mitsubishi Motor Credit, CA Credit Union Collectors Council, S.D. County Bar ‘Free Law Day’, U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Southern District visiting Judges panels, and for other MCLE providers. He is AV rated by Martindale-Hubbell.
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James Haller , Esq, Board Member
Belleville, Illinois
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Jim is a partner with William Mueller in The Law Offices of Mueller and Haller, LLC, in Belleville, Illinois. His firm concentrates solely in consumer bankruptcy law and files approximately 2-3,000 bankruptcies per year. His firm has four offices and twelve attorneys spread throughout southern Illinois and St. Louis, Missouri.
Jim received his B.A. from Carleton College in Northfield Minnesota and his J.D. from Washington University in St. Louis. He is admitted to practice before the United States Supreme Court, the 7th and 8th Circuit Courts of Appeal, the Federal District Courts of Southern Illinois, Eastern and Western Districts of Missouri, and in the states of Illinois and Missouri. |
Matthew Mason, Esq, Board Member
Detroit, Michigan
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Mr. Mason is a 1974 graduate of the University of Michigan Law School and has practiced in California and Michigan since being admitted to the bar in that same year. As a practicing lawyer, Mr. Mason specialized in bankruptcy and consumer litigation while working in an office of the UAW-Chrysler Legal Services Plan. He is currently an Assistant Director of the UAW-GM Legal Services Plan in Detroit, Michigan. He supervises fifteen Plan offices located in Southeast Michigan; and Buffalo, Rochester and Lockport, New York. Those offices provide pre-paid legal services including bankruptcy and consumer matters to General Motors, Ford and Chrysler hourly workers represented by the United Auto Workers Union. As part of his responsibilities, Mr. Mason approves all appellate work originating from the offices he supervises and, in particular, maintains a keen interest in bankruptcy and consumer appellate issues that affect working people.
Mr. Mason has testified before the U.S. Senate and House Judiciary Committees and the National Bankruptcy Review Commission on proposed bankruptcy legislation. Mr. Mason, a member of NACBA since 1993, became a Director of NACBA in 1996, served as its Vice President and its President and is currently a Director. |
John Rao, Esq, Board Member
Boston, Massachusett
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*President*
John Rao is an attorney at the National Consumer Law Center, Inc. Mr. Rao focuses on consumer credit and bankruptcy issues and has served as a panelist and instructor at numerous bankruptcy and consumer law trainings and conferences. He has served as an expert witness in court cases and has testified in Congress on consumer matters. He also participates in the Center’s litigation efforts, which has included serving as co-counsel in the May Department Store reaffirmation abuse class action and the Fairbanks Capital mortgage servicing abuse class action. Mr. Rao serves as a member of the federal Judicial Conference Advisory Committee on Bankruptcy Rules, appointed by Chief Justice John Roberts in 2006. He is a Fellow of the American College of Bankruptcy, secretary for the National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys (and a Director of NACBA since 1998), and former board member for the American Bankruptcy Institute. He is an adjunct faculty member at Boston College School of Law. He is a graduate of Boston University and received his J.D. from the University of California (Hastings).
Mr. Rao is a contributing author and editor of NCLC's Consumer Bankruptcy Law and Practice; co-author of NCLC’s Foreclosures; Bankruptcy Basics; Guide to Surviving Debt; and NCLC Reports: Bankruptcy and Foreclosures Edition, and contributing author to NCLC’s Student Loan Law. He is also a contributing author to Collier on Bankruptcy (Matthew-Bender) and the Collier Bankruptcy Practice Guide.
Mr. Rao has drafted numerous amicus curiae briefs on behalf of NACBA, including those filed in Tennessee Student Assistance Corp. v. Hood, 124 S.Ct. 1905 (2004); Geiger v. Kawaauhau, 118 S.Ct. 974 (1998); In re Price, 370 F.3d 362 (3d Cir. 2004); In re Lopez, 345 F.3d 701, (9th Cir. 2003), In re Paschen, 296 F.3d 1203 (11th Cir. 2002), In re Su, 290 F.3d 1140 (9th Cir. 2002), In re Weinstein, 164 F.3d 677 (1st Cir. 1999); and In re Boodrow, 126 F.3d 43 (2d. Cir. 1997).
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Pamela Stewart, Esq, Board Member
Houston, Texas
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Ms. Stewart was admitted to the State Bar of Texas in 1991 and has been practicing Consumer and Bankruptcy Law, with a focus on mortgage servicing issues, in the Houston area for sixteen years. While attending the University of Houston Law Center, Ms. Stewart completed an internship with former Bankruptcy Judge William Greendyke.
Ms. Stewart has been actively involved in the governance and as a member of numerous local bar associations and national professional Bankruptcy Law organizations. She is a co-founder and former Secretary of Bankruptcy Law Network, the founder and current President of the Houston Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys (formerly known as the Houston Association of Debtor Attorneys), former President and Vice-President of the Upper Kirby Optimist Club, and a former Vice-President of the Katy Bar Association. Ms. Stewart is a Fellow of the College of the State Bar of Texas and the Houston Bar Foundation. Ms. Stewart is also member of the Board of the National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys, the Bankruptcy Section of the Houston Bar Association, the Bankruptcy Law Section of the State Bar of Texas, the National Association of Consumer Advocates, and the Moller-Foltz American Inn of Court. Ms. Stewart has served as a member of the Texas Supreme Court’s Unauthorized Practice of Law Committee.
In 2003, the Coalition for Consumer Bankruptcy Debtor Education certified Ms. Stewart as a Debtor Educator. Ms. Stewart has spoken frequently on Bankruptcy Law and related issues, among other places, at the State Bar of Texas Advanced Consumer Bankruptcy Seminar and the People’s Law School at The University of Houston Law Center, Center for Consumer Law. Ms. Stewart has been selected for inclusion in
“Who’s Who in the World,” “Who’s Who in America,” “Who’s Who of American Women” and “Who’s Who in the South and Southwest.”
Ms. Stewart also has an office in Victoria, Texas. |
Tara Twomey, Esq, Board Member
Carmel, CA
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Tara Twomey is currently Of Counsel to the National Consumer Law Center and served as NACBA’s Amicus Project Director until April 2011. She has been a Lecturer in Law at Stanford, Harvard and Boston College Law Schools. Ms. Twomey is a former Clinical Instructor at the Hale and Dorr Legal Services Center of Harvard Law School where her practice focused, in part, on sustainable homeownership for low- and moderate-income homeowners. She is a contributing author of several books published by the National Consumer Law Center including, Foreclosures: Defenses, Workouts and Mortgage Servicing and Bankruptcy Basics. Ms. Twomey earned her J.D. from Boston College Law School and received her undergraduate degree from the University of California, San Diego. After law school, she served as a law clerk for Chief Justice Herbert P. Wilkins of the Massachusetts Supreme Court.
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