Financial actors such as hedge funds increasingly influence large Chapter 11 cases, such as Chrysler’s and GM’s.

With Chrysler LLC’s sale to Fiat SpA past the U.S. Supreme Court, and with General Motors Corp. commencing its own “surgical” bankruptcy on the Chrysler model, it may be tempting to think that we’ve turned a corner: Tentative deals with most major stakeholders of the automakers assure a quick trip through the Chapter 11 emergency room. Now, we might think, it is just a matter of convalescence. This sense of relief may help to explain why the S&P 500 stock market index reached a 2009 high the same day GM declared bankruptcy.

And so, with Chrysler’s 24-page Chapter 11 filing in U.S. bankruptcy court in Manhattan, another large document review (reviews??) loom in the future.

Along with Jones Day, New York bankruptcy boutique Togut, Segal & Segal is also advising the automaker.  But lips are kind of sealed.  At Jones Day, partners Corinne Ball and David Heiman — the founder of the firm’s bankruptcy and restructuring practice and the ones whose names appear on the Chrysler bankruptcy filing — have not responded to requests for comment.   No, not us (everybody takes calls from The Posse List) but the legal media.

Sources say the firm is fielding a team of more than 30 lawyers to handle the Chrysler bankruptcy, as well as the company’s negotiations with the U.S. government, debt holders, and Fiat on its future survival.

Here are the names of the 30 Jones Day souls who will spend a good portion of the next few days/weeks/months/years — it remains to be seen how “quick” this bankruptcy will be — working on all things Chrysler:

Bankruptcy and Restructuring: New York office restructuring head Corrine Ball (lead counsel), practice group founder David Heiman in Cleveland, Atlanta office restructuring head Jeffrey Ellman, partners Richard Engman and Pedro Jimenez and associates Veerle Roovers, Nathan Lebioda, and Jason Cover in New York, partner Mark Cody and associates Joseph Tiller and Robert Krebs in Chicago, and associate Thomas Wilson in Cleveland.

Litigation: Global head of litigation Thomas “Tim” Cullen, Jr., in Washington, D.C., partner Gregory Shumaker in D.C., and of counsel Robert Hamilton in Columbus.

Banking and Finance: Financial institution litigation and regulation practice cohead Brett Barragate in New York and partner John Mazey in Dallas.

M&A: North American practice head Jere Thomson in New York, partners Marilyn Sonnie, John Kane, and Randi Lesnick, and associates Matthew Gray, Zoe Vantzos, and Christopher Froelich in New York.

Employee Benefits: Partners John Cornell and Manan Shah and associate Lisa Jesner in New York.

Tax: Partners Candace Ridgway in Washington, D.C., and Edward Kennedy in New York.

For a nice primer on the Chrysler bankruptcy click here.   The bankruptcy plan “timeline” as announced may be too aggressive (see analysis here) because as the Wall Street Journal opines a Chrysler bankruptcy won’t be quick because it will be difficult for a judge to sort through the many conflicting claims (click here).

Still waaaaaaaaaaay too early to figure out where document reviews will happen but our Deep Throat at Jones Day will (we hope: our Stella Artois bills are through the roof) keep us in the loop.

Many Posse List members who want to go solo or freelance have asked us about bankruptcy practice.  There are a good many of you who have worked on some of the major bankruptcy document reviews in the past few years (Federal-Mogul, United Airlines, Calpine, Enron, tec.) and will be well-prepared for the bankruptcy document reviews rolling out.  Many of you have acquired a good working knowledge of Chapter 11 bankruptcy procedures.

But for the many of you who asked about doing solo/freelance consumer bankruptcy work you need to very well-grounded.  As a recent Texas Lawyer article stated “if the practice of law is full of potholes, then the practice of bankruptcy is full of punji pits”.    The article has some good warnings.  The intricacies of bankruptcy law are mind-numbing (two us on The Posse List staff are ex-bankruptcy attorneys) and we agree:  miss one of the legion of deadlines, and the client loses valuable rights. File a petition without the debtor going through the required pre-petition credit counseling, and the judge will dismiss the case.  Fail to timely object to a debtor’s Chapter 13 plan that does not provide adequately for the treatment of a vehicle loan under 11 U.S.C. §1325(a)(9), and the creditor may lose thousands of dollars that otherwise would have been paid in the plan.  Etc., etc.

The U.S. Bankruptcy Code is not user friendly, and it does not lend itself to figuring out its intricacies alone.  Even with help from experienced practitioners and diligent self-study, learning to practice bankruptcy law can be an intellectually humbling experience.

We do not suggest you take a series of one CLE after another.  We strongly suggest you start with an excellent course on consumer bankruptcy at Sole Practice University which is taught by Jay Fleischman (click here).  He is very popular teacher at SPU and we have found that many students have enrolled at SPU specifically for his course.  What’s good about SPU is the collateral benefits of all the other courses related to creating and marketing your practice plus the great community that’s going on, too.   But check out the site yourself and do the numbers.  At less than $50 per month its value is unsurpassed. You can find sign-up information by clicking here.

And for some very good background material (both consumer and bankruptcy law for contract attorneys, freelancers, etc.) try these websites and blogs.  We’ll add to the list as we find more:

American Bankruptcy Institute

Bankruptcy Law Network

Bankruptcy and Restructuring

Federal Courts Offer Training on Bankruptcy Basics           

Learning bankruptcy 

Nolo’s Foreclosure and Bankruptcy Blog

SEC: How Chapter 11 works

The Bankruptcy Blog

The Bankruptcy Lawyers Blog

Links to various bankruptcy blogs