Issues Between Landlords and Tenants During Bankruptcy

Caven Hamilton is an Incoming Associate at Buchalter’s Los Angeles office where he will be returning to work in the firm’s bankruptcy department. He is a graduate of Florida State University (Magna Cum Laude) where he double majored in Political Science and Criminology. His hobbies away from the desk include weight lifting, video games, and watching documentaries on the History channel.

Sheri Bluebond is a Federal Bankruptcy Court Judge for the United States bankruptcy court, Central District of California. She was appointed February 1, 2001.

Judge Bluebond received her undergraduate degree from the University of California at Los Angeles in 1982 and her J.D. from the University of California at Los Angeles School of Law in 1985. 

From 1995 to 2001, Judge Bluebond was a Partner with Irell & Manella LLP in Los Angeles, California. From 1991 to 1995, she was a shareholder with Murphy, Weir & Butler in Los Angeles, California. Then she was an associate for Gendel, Raskoff, Shapiro & Quittner in Los Angeles from 1983 to 1991.

Joseph Welch focuses his finance practice on helping clients address challenges in supply chains, financial volatility, risk mitigation, and maximizing creditor recoveries. Joseph leverages extensive experience in real estate, insolvency, restructuring, bankruptcy, and related litigation to provide clients with in-depth insights and strategies.

He counsels clients across a range of industries, including lending, leasing, agribusiness, agrifinance, and real estate. He has served as lead counsel in representing investors, large banks, lenders, and international and Fortune 100 companies. Additionally, he conducts training seminars and presentations on trending legal topics throughout the country. Before practicing law, Joseph was the principal of a real estate and mortgage brokerage. Joseph is a Certified Bankruptcy Specialist, an elite designation from The State Bar of California Board of Legal Specialization. He also holds a California real estate broker license.

Monique Jewett-Brewster is Chair of the Financial Institutions and Creditors Rights Practice Group and a member of Hopkins & Carley’s Litigation Department in the San Jose office. Monique has over twenty years of experience advising creditor clients in every aspect of insolvency law, including without limitation, in the workout, restructuring and enforcement of commercial loans and in business bankruptcy cases nationwide. She also counsels the City of Oakland in its bankruptcy matters.

 With a love of sharing knowledge, Monique has presented on the subjects of commercial finance and business bankruptcy for the State Bar of California (later CLA)’s Business Law Section; Continuing Education of the Bar (CEB); California Bankruptcy Forum; Bar Association of San Francisco; Alameda County Bar Association; California Minority Counsel Program; California Bankers Association; Western Bankers Association; and Tennessee Bar Association, among other organizations. Monique is also a prolific author, having served as a contributing author to Westlaw’s Commercial Finance Newsletter as a member of the CLA Business Law Section’s ad hoc authors committee, and authored a chapter on the impact of bankruptcy on real property title and sales included in CEB’s Real Property Ownership and Taxation practice guide. Monique also has drafted several legal development alerts of value to her commercial creditor clientele. 

Finally, Monique was instrumental to the launch of Hopkins & Carley’s Bankruptcy Bytes and Money Matters video series in 2020, both of which designed to introduce commercial creditors to complicated legal concepts related to their ability to recover defaulted debt. As of the close of 2022, these creditors rights video series have been viewed over 70,000 times.

Ivan is of counsel in our San Francisco office, where he represents clients in all areas of real estate-related litigation in state and federal courts, as well as contested matters and adversary proceedings in bankruptcy court. He has extensive experience in breach of lease and unlawful detainer litigation and pre-litigation counseling and negotiation involving a wide variety of commercial real estate, including neighborhood and regional shopping centers, office buildings, warehouse and industrial properties, data centers, restaurants, and hotels. Ivan represents shopping center developers and landlords of office and data center properties in major bankruptcy proceedings throughout the United States. He has utilized alternative dispute resolution in a wide variety of disputes, including arbitration, mediation, and private judge proceedings.

Ivan has spoken at continuing education programs sponsored by the American Bankruptcy Institute, International Council of Shopping Centers, State Bar of California, the Bar Association of San Francisco, and the California Continuing Education of the Bar, on topics such as landlord-tenant disputes, the treatment of leases in bankruptcy proceedings, alternative dispute resolution, and real estate-related litigation.