Coaching Your Non-Expert Witness

Hon. Pamela Pepper is a U.S. District Court Judge for the Eastern District of Wisconsin in Milwaukee, appointed by President Obama in 2014.

Previously, she served as a bankruptcy judge for the district, initially appointed on July 5, 2005, and named chief judge on July 1, 2010. Prior to her appointment, she was with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Chicago and moved to the Milwaukee U.S. Attorney’s Office in 1994.

Judge Pepper was previously a solo criminal defense practitioner, representing clients in federal trial courts and in the Seventh Circuit, as well as in Wisconsin state court. She holds a graduate certificate in dispute resolution from Marquette University and has taught legal writing and law practice management at Marquette Law School.

Judge Pepper is a member of ABI and formerly served as education director and chair of its Consumer Bankruptcy Committee, and currently serves on its Board of Directors and Education Committee. She belongs to the National Conference of Bankruptcy Judges, having served a term as the Seventh Circuit representative on the Board of Governors and a term as secretary from 2013-14. She also has served on the National Conference Education Committee and chaired that committee for the 2014 conference in Chicago. Judge Pepper completed two terms as an associate editor of the American Bankruptcy Law Journal. She has served on the Human Resources Advisory Council of the Administrative Office of U.S. Courts and currently serves on the OSCAR working group and the Judicial Data Working Group for the Administrative Office.

She is also a member of the Bankruptcy Rules Committee of the Judicial Conference of the U.S. Judge Pepper frequently speaks at Federal Judicial Center programs, and is a former member of the Center’s Bankruptcy Judges’ Education Advisory Group. She also speaks at bar associations across the country on topics such as the rules of evidence in bankruptcy, the intersection of criminal and bankruptcy law, and litigation skills.

Judge Pepper received her undergraduate degree in theater from Northwestern University and her J.D. from Cornell Law School, where she was a notes editor on the Cornell Law Review and a teaching assistant.

Matthew T. Gensburg leads Gensburg Calandriello & Kanter, P.C.’s bankruptcy, commercial litigation and restructuring practice group in Chicago, with an emphasis in financial services. On behalf of secured and unsecured lenders, lessors, creditors’ committees and debtors in all phases of corporate reorganizations and debt structuring, he manages breach-of-contract, settlement agreements, civil lawsuits, collections, post-judgment enforcement, and the purchase and sale of assets.

Mr. Gensburg is a current member of the Chicago Bar Association’s Pro Bono Bankruptcy Committee, and he was a past program chair and advisory board member of the ABI’s Central States Bankruptcy Workshop, covering Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio and Wisconsin. He is a frequent lecturer on topics involving the Bankruptcy and Uniform Commercial Codes and statutory state options.

Earlier in his career, he lectured as a faculty member of the American Bankers Association’s National Commercial Lending School and Commercial Lending Graduate School, as well as to members of the National Business Institute on bankruptcy law and procedure. Mr. Gensburg is admitted to practice in the U.S. District and Bankruptcy Courts for the Northern District of Illinois, the Eastern District of Michigan and the Eastern District of Wisconsin, and in the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. He is admitted to the Illinois Bar.

Mr. Gensburg received his B.B.A. in 1980 from the University of Michigan and his J.D. in 1983 from Emory University.

Camille C. Bent is an associate in BakerHostetler’s Bankruptcy and Creditors’ Rights practice group in New York, where she concentrates in the areas of corporate bankruptcy, financial restructuring and commercial litigation. She is experienced in disputes and transactions arising out of corporate insolvencies, including asset sale, fraudulent-transfer, negligent misrepresentation and wrongful redemption cases. Ms. Bent has represented debtors, creditors, trustees, committees and other interested parties in various industries.

She currently represents Irving H. Picard, Securities Investor Protection Act trustee for the liquidation of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities, LLC, and litigates multimillion-dollar avoidance and recovery actions against foreign and domestic entities. She also continues to represent and defend the City of New York on a pro bono basis as a part of its Public Service Program.

Ms. Bent is an active member of the International Women’s Insolvency & Restructuring Confederation and of BakerHostetler’s Recruitment, Diversity, and Women’s Steering Committees.

She received her B.A. from Johns Hopkins University and her J.D. and M.B.A. from Emory University.