Bankruptcy Judge Elizabeth Perris to Retire in 2015

By Katy Stech
Wall Street Journal
March 7, 2014

http://blogs.wsj.com/bankruptcy/2014/03/07/bankruptcy-judge-elizabeth-perris-to-retire-in-2015/

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Elizabeth L. Perris plans to retire after 30 years on the Oregon bench.

Judge Perris, 62, who is known for mediating disputes in Detroit’s bankruptcy and for other financially struggling cities, plans to retire in January. She’ll use the extra time to continue mediation work, travel and “not [have] to be on 6 a.m. conference calls,” according to a statement from her chambers.

Judge Perris handled the bankruptcy of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Portland in 2004, the first of about a dozen bankruptcies that dioceses around the country have filed to deal with sexual abuse claims.

Soon after taking the bench in 1984, Judge Perris presided over the successful turnaround of steel pipe-welder Northwest Pipe & Casing Co. (now called Northwest Pipe Co.).

Another case involved Microsoft Corp. co-founder Paul Allen and lenders, whose feuding led the operator of the Rose Garden arena to file for bankruptcy. The arena, renamed the Moda Center, is home to the Portland Trailblazers basketball team.

Outside of Oregon, Judge Perris was picked to mediate disputes in Detroit’s historic bankruptcy. She handled mediation for three California cities—Vallejo, Mammoth Lakes and Stockton—that have filed for Chapter 9 protection.

Lawyers in Stockton’s bankruptcy case credit Judge Perris with orchestrating “month of intense negotiations” between the 300,000-resident city and bondholder groups who will likely be paid less than what they’re owed.

“She’s a saint,” Marc Levinson, Stockton’s lawyer who also dealt with Judge Perris as the lawyer for the city of Vallejo, told Bankruptcy Beat. “She is universally liked and respected by parties in the Stockton case no matter how difficult the mediation has been.”

Judge Perris graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1972 and got a law degree from University of California, Davis, in 1975. She has been a member of the Bankruptcy Appellate Panel for the Ninth Circuit and is a fellow of the American College of Bankruptcy.

A Portland bankruptcy lawyer told the Chicago Tribune in a 1994 profile that Judge Perris “tempers her legal decisions with a heavy dose of practicality, which some might call business sense.”

There is a chance that she could continue her work as a judge even after her retirement. According to her chambers, Judge Perris will agree to be recalled—a process that enables retired bankruptcy judges to return to the courtroom to help temporarily overloaded courts. A total of 45 bankruptcy judges are serving on a recalled basis, according to the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts.

Write to Katy Stech at katy.stech@wsj.com. Follow her on Twitter at @KatyStech.