 | Judge Samuel L. Bufford has served since 1985 as a bankruptcy judge in Los Angeles, in the Central District of California, one of the busiest bankruptcy courts in the United States. During this time he has overseen approximately 100,000 bankruptcy cases, including more than 2500 cases involving the reorganization of business under chapter 11. His most famous case was the Anna Nicole Smith case, in which the United States Supreme Court recently affirmed his decision that the dispute with her husband’s rich relatives belonged in a bankruptcy court and did not have to be litigated in a Texas state court.
Judge Bufford is the author of one book, numerous law review articles and more than 75 published opinions. In addition, he is a frequent lecturer throughout the United States and abroad on issues of bankruptcy law and legal ethics. Judge Bufford served as editor in chief of the America Bankruptcy Law Journal from 1990 to 1994.
Judge Bufford has taught some 25 seminars for judges and other professionals abroad since 1991. He has taught and consulted recently in Egypt, Jordan, Tunisia, Albania, Algeria, Ecuador, Romania, Montenegro and Morocco. He has also conducted seminars in Los Angeles and consulted with visiting judges and government officials from numerous countries including Russia, Serbia, China, Thailand, Romania and Montenegro.
Judge Bufford was Nomura Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School for the winter, 2004 term, where he taught a course in international and comparative insolvency law. He also taught this course at Harvard in 2003. He also serves as an adjunct professor of law at the University of Southern California, and as a law professor at Ohio State University. He earned his law degree from the University of Michigan, where he was an editor of the Michigan Law Review and of the Journal of Law Reform. In addition, he holds a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Texas and was a philosophy professor for nearly ten years. |