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Enron, WorldCom Bankruptcy Judge Arthur Gonzalez to Deliver 2013 Tucker Lecture

The Hon. Arthur Gonzalez, retired Chief Judge of the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York, will deliver the 2013 Tucker Lecture at Washington and Lee University School of Law.

The lecture will take place Monday, September 23 at 12:00 p.m. in the Millhiser Moot Court Room, Sydney Lewis Hall on the campus of Washington and Lee. The title of Judge Gonzalez’s talk is “The US Auto Industry: ‘Too Big to Fail’ – Politically/Economically or Both.”
This event is free and open to the public.

Judge Gonzalez was appointed to the Bankruptcy Court in 1995 and named Chief Judge in 2010. During his tenure, Judge Gonzalez presided over many large and complex corporate bankruptcy proceedings, including those for Enron, WorldCom and Chrysler.

Judge Gonzalez received an undergraduate degree in accounting from Fordham University and a master’s degree in education from Brooklyn College in 1974. He received a J.D. from Fordham University School of Law in 1982. He also received an LL.M. in taxation from New York University School of Law in 1990.

Judge Gonzalez was a staff attorney in the Office of Chief Counsel of the Internal Revenue Service and earned the Chief Counsel’s Special Achievement Award for three consecutive years. He entered private practice following his post with the IRS.

Judge Gonzalez was appointed Assistant United States Trustee for the Southern District of New York in 1991 and served in that position until his appointment as United States Trustee for Region 2 (Second Circuit) in 1993. He served in that position until his appointment to the United States Bankruptcy Court. He retired from the Court in 2012.

Judge Gonzalez is currently a Senior Fellow at New York University Law School, where he teaches courses in bankruptcy law. Before his retirement from the Court, he taught at NYU as an adjunct professor. He also serves on the Character and Fitness Committee for the New York State Supreme Court Appellate Division, First Department.

Prior to beginning his law career, Judge Gonzalez was a teacher in the New York City School System for 13 years.

The Tucker Lecture at Washington and Lee School of Law was first established by the W&L Board of Trustees in 1949 to mark the bicentennial of the University and the centennial of the Law School. It was named after John Randolph Tucker, hired in 1870 as the second teacher in legal education and named the first dean of the Washington and Law University School of Law in 1893.