We bankruptcy judges like to think of ourselves as the leaders of our bar, the ones who set the tone, call the shots, resolve disputes, affect the lives of those who appear before us. We undoubtedly have considerable influence, but in a moment of reflective candor, each honest jurist would admit that an experienced, empathetic, and energetic chapter 13 trustee is worth a hundred bankruptcy judges in a small consumer district like ours.

I know this is true because I was thrust into such a moment of candid reflection when I learned not long ago that the Western District of Michigan’s long-serving chapter 13 trustee, Barbara Pietila Foley, will be retiring in a few months. No judge, no lawyer, no United States Trustee or trial attorney can hold a candle to Barb Foley in terms of influence and ability to effect positive outcomes for the thousands of debtors and creditors who have turned to our district for relief over the last fourteen years since Barb Foley has served as our chapter 13 trustee. Many debtors in our district never see the courtroom or meet someone from the United States Trustee program, but those assigned to Barb’s docket deal frequently, and often face-to-face, with Barb or her closely supervised staff. She calls the shots without the rest of us even realizing it. That’s the mark of a great trustee.

For those who don’t know Barb, a brief introduction of her as a legal professional is in order. Barb distinguished herself in the law even before she was really a lawyer, serving as associate editor of the law review at her alma mater, Seattle University School of Law. She entered private practice in 1982, then later joined other dedicated professionals at the UAW Legal Services Plan in 1984, serving the legal needs of autoworkers and their families for nearly two decades. Having gained considerable insight and expertise in the many ways in which the law affects individuals in our community, especially the financially distressed, Barb shifted gears and joined the Eastern District of Michigan’s long-time chapter 13 trustee, Carl Bekofske, as his staff attorney. 

After learning from Carl, and likely teaching him a few things during the eight years they worked together, Barb sought and obtained an appointment as a chapter 13 panel trustee herself. Since May 2010, she has been one of two standing chapter 13 trustees for the Western District of Michigan, sharing the docket with the district’s other trustee, Brett N. Rodgers.

As every reader of this tribute knows, notwithstanding the constitutional requirement of “uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcies throughout the United States,” U.S. Const. Art. I, § 8, chapter 13 practice is an idiosyncratic hodgepodge across the country, and even among neighboring districts within a state. Local practices and customs vary, which can make it difficult for an old bar to accept a new trustee from another district, and vice versa. I worried about this when I first heard in 2010 that an attorney from Flint, Michigan, named Barbara Pietila Foley, would be replacing Mary K. Viegelahn as a standing trustee for the Western District of Michigan, after Mary took up residence in San Antonio to shake things up down there. See, e.g., Harris v. Viegelahn, 575 U.S. 510 (2015).

Mary was the proverbial “tough act to follow,” and Barb was an unknown, tenderfoot trustee from the Eastern District, a larger jurisdiction in many ways, with a much more metropolitan and, from our perspective, rough and tumble reputation. But Barb quickly put my concerns to rest at our first meeting in my Kalamazoo chambers. She was respectful but firm, of course, and I could also detect a nurturing side. We talked about, of all things, my relationship with my mother (let’s not go there!) and I foresaw that Barb would be making her mark on our district. Whatever doubts I had about Barb’s transition to our district quickly melted away, and I can say with confidence that the rest of our bar felt the same way from the start.

Barb thinks of herself first as a grandmother, mother, wife, and friend – in other words, a natural person. Second, she sees herself as a lawyer and trustee. Prioritizing the personal over the professional does not diminish her contributions as a lawyer, but instead magnifies them. Her healthy concentration on the individual shines through her work, providing more meaningful relief to those we serve.

Bankruptcy judges cannot attend the first meeting of creditors under § 341, but that did not prevent me from hearing tales of Barb’s insightful but compassionate examination of the debtors, and her respectful restraint of the occasionally aggressive creditor. For most chapter 13 debtors, the trustee is the only bankruptcy authority they actually encounter – they rarely enter a courtroom. Their impressions of the Bankruptcy Court and the system largely depend on their experience in the first meeting rooms and in any follow-up with their trustee. Word soon made its way back to the bench that Barb was strong but gentle with our debtors and creditors during the first meetings, and thereafter. She displayed a grandmother’s patience, but also wisdom, and the ability to communicate expectations without raising her voice, only the occasional eyebrow. She proved herself to be well-suited to her new role.

The Bankruptcy Code assigns many tasks to a chapter 13 trustee, and Barb fulfills each of them, but the job she takes most to heart is the duty under § 1302 to “assist the debtor in performance under the plan.” She does this, as just noted, not by exalting her role as trustee, but more often by acting as a fellow traveler on a difficult road. She meets the debtors where she finds them, mostly regular, sometimes unsophisticated persons who have fallen down, or gotten in over their heads, sometimes through poor decisions, of course, but more often simply coping with the challenges and adversity that life throws at all of us. Barb sees each debtor as a unique person, an individual, not a problem to be solved.

In court, it would be convenient (as I too often do) to refer to the debtor as, well, “the Debtor.” Yet, Barb goes out of her way to say “Mr. Smith,” or “Ms. Jones,” subtly reminding the Debtors – and the court – that a chapter 13 case is about an”individual,” 11 U.S.C. § 109(e), a natural person, not simply a nameless unfortunate labeled as “the Debtor.” She does this whether she is seeking to dismiss the case of a serial filer named Mr. Smith, or siding with Mr. Smith in a dispute over extravagant post-petition fees under Rule 3002.1.  We would all do well to follow Barb’s example in this respect.

Barb is also eminently helpful, and she anticipates the needs of those around her. Last week I mediated a dispute for a colleague involving one of Barb’s cases and my colleague ordered Barb to attend. This was a smart move on his part, even though Barb was not a primary combatant. She was not thrilled about spending five or six hours in a conference room in Lansing, but she was nevertheless cheerful, noting that the mediation gave her the opportunity to show me the latest photos of her grandchildren, which of course she did, adeptly swiping her smartphone.

During the mediation I met separately with a pro se chapter 13 debtor whose creditors had decided that he needed to increase his post-confirmation plan payments and deal with an allegedly non-dischargeable debt. We talked about several possibilities, including modifying payments and plan term, but neither of us was prepared to run the numbers to really make sense of the competing proposals. I suggested we talk to Barb, who was sitting patiently in the other room. I poked my head into the room where she said she was prepping for next week’s motion day, but I think she was scrolling through photos of her grandkids. Before I could open my mouth, and without looking up from her device, she casually tendered a handwritten chart showing the impact of various payment and plan-term changes on creditor recoveries, including the other mediation party. I did not even have to ask. She just knew. I hate to think of what our district will lose next January when Barb retires. 

Barb’s contributions are not just courtroom or courtroom-adjacent gifts to us. She actively promotes education of debtors and the bar. For example, our district has a generally well-attended and well-regarded seminar every year in Northern Michigan. Shortly after her appointment, I conscripted her to serve as education co-chair for the annual seminar, a sometimes-thankless role she cheerfully and capably performed for years. With her guidance, we managed to increase our educational offerings to the consumer debtor bar– most of our practitioners – while maintaining high quality creditor programming, bringing balance and increasing awareness among the gamut of folks who attend our seminars. The equilibrium she helped us achieve continues to this day and pays generous dividends to the bankruptcy community in terms of increased competence, camaraderie, and civility.

Barb seems to recognize that the debtor education Congress has prescribed in §§ 109(h) and 111 as the ticket to bankruptcy relief frequently amounts to little more than a few clicks of a mouse, yet she evidently shares the legislature’s view that financial education for debtors is a worthwhile goal. So, with characteristic can-do enthusiasm, she created her own debtor education program which she offered within the courthouse in conjunction with her first meetings under § 341. Less didactic than Dave Ramsey perhaps, Barb and her staff nevertheless filled a crucial need, at least until the COVID pandemic (and the United States Trustee’s sometimes regrettable adoption of telephonic first meetings) put the kibosh on the in-person experience. I participated on occasion in the program and marveled at how accessible Barb and her staff made financial literacy. Better late than never! I chose a career in bankruptcy, as perhaps the readers of this tribute did, because our shared discipline values no-nonsense, practical, get-down-to-brass-tacks problem solving. Title 11 offers an elegant solution serving a variety of public policies, including (of course) equality of distribution and the fresh start, and, for my money, it succeeds most clearly in chapter 13. But a statutory framework with laudable goals, like ours, would be dead on arrival without dedicated, empathetic experts to carryout its aims. It is by no means a fortuitous coincidence that chapter 13 relief has thrived in our district since Barb Foley arrived here about fourteen years ago. She personifies the compassion and practicality, the expertise and elan, and especially the elevation of the individual, upon which the “adjustment of debts of an individual with regular income” depends. I, and many others within our district, even those who are not yet involved in a chapter 13 case, will sorely miss Barbara Pietila Foley when, early next year, she will be free to devote more of her attention to her children and grandchildren, rather than the “honest but unfortunate” who will continue to look to us for help after she is gone.  We all wish her well.