Response

Online
Response
For Bankruptcy Exceptionalism
Jared I. Mayer
Business Restructuring Associate at Ropes & Gray, LLP

Jared I. Mayer is a Business Restructuring Associate at Ropes & Gray, LLP. He received his J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School in 2021, his M.A. from Johns Hopkins University in 2018, and his B.A. from Johns Hopkins University in 2018. He thanks Professor Seymour, as well as Ryan Preston Dahl, Katharine Scott, and the editors of The University of Chicago Law Review Online for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this Essay. The views presented in this Essay are his alone and do not reflect the views of Ropes & Gray LLP. All errors are his alone as well.

In his recent article, Against Bankruptcy Exceptionalism, Professor Jonathan M. Seymour argues that bankruptcy courts have wrongly bucked the Supreme Court’s trend toward textualism. Bankruptcy courts believe that they need to approach the Bankruptcy Code pragmatically in light of the unique dynamics inherent in bankruptcy practice and therefore adopt purposivist, equitable, or “rough justice” approaches to facilitate that kind of pragmatism—an attitude that Professor Seymour calls “bankruptcy exceptionalism.”

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Response
What’s Different about Law?
Gillian K. Hadfield
Professor of Law and Professor of Strategic Management at the University of Toronto

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