Two attorneys with Baker Donelson have been elected to leadership roles in the American College of Bankruptcy Foundation (ACBF). Jan M. Hayden has been elected to serve as chair of the ACBF. She is the first woman to hold this position. E. Franklin Childress Jr. has been elected to a second two-year term on the ACBF's board of directors.
A shareholder in Baker Donelson's Corporate Restructuring and Bankruptcy Group and the Firm's New Orleans office, Ms. Hayden has more than 40 years of experience handling bankruptcy and insolvency issues for her clients. Her practice is concentrated on assisting clients with restructuring and creditors' rights both in and out of bankruptcy proceedings, and she has represented creditors and debtors in mass tort bankruptcies.
Ms. Hayden previously served as the ACBF's vice chairperson. She also serves on the board of the American College of Bankruptcy and served two terms as the chairperson of the Consumer Protection, Lender Liability and Bankruptcy Section of the Louisiana State Bar Association. For several years she has served as co-chair of the Louisiana State Bar Association's Continuing Legal Education Committee and has served as chair of the State's MCLE Committee.
A Fellow of the American College of Bankruptcy and the American Bar Foundation, Ms. Hayden has been listed in The Best Lawyers in America since 1993 and in Chambers USA: America's Leading Business Lawyers since 2010. Louisiana Super Lawyers has recognized her among the top ten attorneys and top 25 female attorneys in Louisiana. New Orleans City Business has recognized her as a "Woman of the Year" and with its "Leadership in Law" award. She was named to the 2022 and 2020 Lawdragon 500 Leading U.S. Bankruptcy and Restructuring Lawyers. In 2016, Ms. Hayden was named a recipient of The Center for American and International Law's (CAIL) Michelle Mendez Serviam Award, which recognized bankruptcy professionals in the Fifth Circuit who have demonstrated persistently exceptional contributions to others in the bankruptcy profession and community.
A shareholder in Baker Donelson's Memphis office, Mr. Childress is also a member of the Firm's Corporate Restructuring and Bankruptcy Group. He has extensive experience in the areas of bankruptcy, representing secured and unsecured creditors in reorganization and liquidation cases throughout the United States; representing parties in sales of assets in bankruptcy cases; preference litigation; trustee representation; creditors' rights; loan workouts; bank litigation and secured transaction litigation. His experience also includes real estate litigation (foreclosure and lien litigation), UCC issues, service as receiver and trustee, and general commercial litigation.
Mr. Childress was inducted as a Fellow of the American College of Bankruptcy in 2013. He has been recognized for his work in bankruptcy by Chambers USA since 2010 and by Mid-South Super Lawyers since 2007. He has also been listed in Best Lawyers in America since 2007 and was named the Best Lawyers 2020 Memphis Bet-the-Company Litigation "Lawyer of the Year" and was also named the publication's Memphis Litigation – Bankruptcy "Lawyer of the Year" in 2017, 2019, 2021 and 2022. Mr. Childress was also named to the 2022 and 2020 Lawdragon 500 Leading U.S. Bankruptcy and Restructuring Lawyers.
The ACBF was established to promote the ends of justice through educational and charitable activities. Its missions, focused in the areas of bankruptcy and insolvency, are sponsorship and encouragement of legal research, publications and forums; establishment of scholarships; providing for the collection and maintenance of data and documents for scholarly research; and fostering the institution and maintenance of legal aid facilities for the indigent. The Foundation provides support to pro bono legal service programs providing assistance to an increasingly diverse and evolving number of communities across the entire United States. In the past year, through the work of its directors, the ACBF raised money and distributed more than $450,000 to 46 pro bono organizations throughout the country.