Career
LoPucki is the Security Pacific Bank Professor of Law at the University of California, Los Angeles and the Bruce West. Nichols Visiting Professor of Law at the Harvard. LoPucki is a nationally recognized expert on bankruptcy and compiled a widely used research database on bankruptcy in the United States. called Bankruptcy Research Database which forms the basis for a large portion of empirical academic research on bankruptcy. LoPucki is notable for his criticism of the bankruptcy industry in the United States. including the magnitude of fees paid to professionals as well as corruption within the court system.
In his book Courting Failure: How Competition for Big Cases Is Corrupting the Bankruptcy Courts (University of Michigan Press, 2005), LoPucki asserted that Federal Bankruptcy judges have become corrupted by their competition to attract large company bankruptcy filings to their districts, and are offering favorable rulings for such companies in order to attract them.
Routine Illegality in Big-Case Bankruptcy Court Fee Practices, Professional Overcharging in Large Bankruptcy Reorganization Cases, Rise of the Financial Advisors: An Empirical Study of the Division of Professional Fees in Large Bankruptcies, J. Bankruptcy Fire Sales, Delaware Bankruptcy: Failure in the Ascendancy, An Empirical Study of the Determinants of Professional Fees in Large Bankruptcy Reorganization Cases., Why Are Delaware and New York Bankruptcy Reorganizations Failing?, The Failure of Public Company Bankruptcies in Delaware and New York: Empirical Evidence of a "Race to the Bottom".
