News

Brigid Ndege Co-Authors ABA Article on U.S. Supreme Court Decision in Siegel v. Fitzgerald

Chicago, Ill. (July 8, 2022) - Chicago Associate Brigid K. Ndege recently co-authored an article for the American Bar Association (ABA) Business Law section publication Business Law Today analyzing a recent United States Supreme Court decision in Siegel v. Fitzgerald. 

In the article, titled "The Fee Hike Dilemma: The U.S. Supreme Court Resolves Fee Dispute and Holds Fee Hike Unconstitutional," Ms. Ndege examines the history of two programs that administer bankruptcy cases in the U.S. - the Bankruptcy Administrator Program and the U.S. Trustee program - and how a 2017 fee increase by Congress illustrated the lack of uniformity between these two programs. The article describes how the drastic difference in fees for debtors in the two programs resulted in legal challenges to the constitutional uniformity of the fee hike, which eventually led to a circuit split, with the Fifth and Fourth circuits holding that the fee increase was constitutional and the Second and Third circuits holding it was not.

As the article notes, the U.S. Supreme Court resolved this circuit split in Siegel v. Fitzgerald, by unanimously holding that the fee hike was unconstitutional. However, the Court declined to address whether the dual bankruptcy case administration system was constitutional. The article closes with a review of potential remedies posed by the Court.

Ms. Ndege is a member of Lewis Brisbois' Bankruptcy & Insolvency Practice. She represents creditors’ committees, creditor groups, real estate development firms as well as other entities in all aspects of restructuring stressed and distressed companies. Prior to joining Lewis Brisbois, she served as a judicial law clerk in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Illinois. Last year, Ms. Ndege was awarded the American Bar Association (ABA) Business Law Section Business Bankruptcy Committee’s 20/20 Partners Rising Young Leader Award. 

You can read the full ABA Business Law Today article here. 

Related Attorneys