The American Bankruptcy Institute (ABI) announced that Alane A. Becket of Becket & Lee, LLP (Malvern, Pa.) has been selected by the ABI Board of Directors to be President for a one-year term, starting at ABI’s 2019 Annual Spring Meeting. An ABI member since 1997, Becket is a member of ABI's Commission on Consumer Bankruptcy. She has served on ABI's Board of Directors, co-chaired ABI’s Consumer Bankruptcy Committee, served as an advisor to the Consumer Education Center on ABIWorld and has been a contributing editor to the ABI Journal.

Becket is admitted to practice in Pennsylvania and New Jersey and has represented national creditors and debt-purchasers in commercial and bankruptcy matters and Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) defense, including matters in appellate courts. She also is a member of the Board of Directors of the Creditors Bar Association. Becket has written and lectured extensively on consumer collection and bankruptcy practices, and, most recently, on the effect of the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005 on unsecured creditors. She graduated from Pennsylvania State University and Widener University School of Law.

ABI also named Chief Bankruptcy Judge Barbara J. Houser (N.D. Tex., Dallas)  to be President-Elect. She will become president for a one-year term, starting at ABI’s 2020 Annual Spring Meeting. An ABI member since 2003, Judge Houser has served as Vice-President-Research Grants and co-chair for ABI’s Alternative Dispute Resolution Committee, and she is a frequent speaker at ABI events and a contributor to the ABI Journal.

Sworn in as a bankruptcy judge for the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Texas in 2000, Judge Houser previously was an attorney and shareholder at Sheinfeld, Maley & Kay PC in Dallas. While at Sheinfeld, she led the firm’s representation of clients in a variety of significant chapter 11 cases, including as her last major case the firm’s representation of Dow Corning Corp. — one of the largest chapter 11 cases ever filed.

Judge Houser was elected a Fellow of the American College of Bankruptcy in 1994 and currently serves as its vice president. She was elected to membership in the National Bankruptcy Conference in 1996 and also serves as a member of its Executive Committee. Judge Houser is also a past president of the National Conference of Bankruptcy Judges. A frequent author and lecturer on corporate restructuring and insolvency law, she is a visiting professor of law at the Dedman School of Law at Southern Methodist University, where she teaches creditors’ rights. Judge Houser is a contributing author to Collier on Bankruptcy (15th Ed.) and the Collier Bankruptcy Manual (3rd Ed.), and the National Law Journal named her one of the 50 most influential women lawyers in America in 1998. She received her J.D. from Southern Methodist University Law School.

The complete list of directors and officers is available at https://www.abi.org/about-us/board-of-directors.