7 - Bargaining After the Fall

Summary

This chapter shows how reorganization law changed dramatically during the 1970s. A group of skilled lawyers and academics returned to first principles and boldly reworked reorganization law once again. In their hands, the unwritten law that governs today took its modern form. These reformers focused squarely on creating an environment that was conducive to bargaining. Judges were to provide oversight, but they were no longer to do the heavy-handed policing upon which New Deal reformers had insisted. At the same time, however, judges had to embrace the basic norms of the credit men and do more than simply ensure that everyone had a seat at the table. Bargaining had to be forthright, and parties could not conceal conflicts of interest or advance private agendas.