Pamela Keenan, Edward Boltz Receive Bankruptcy Section Awards
The NCBA Bankruptcy Section presented two awards on Friday, November 15, 2024, in conjunction with the 47th Annual Bankruptcy Institute held in Wrightsville Beach.
The Bankruptcy Law Section Lifetime Achievement Award was presented to Pamela Keenan of Kirschbaum, Nanney, Keenan & Griffin in Raleigh. The immediate past chair of the section, Shelley Koon Abel, presented the award.
The Bankruptcy Law Section Pro Bono Award was presented to Edward C. Boltz of the Law Offices of John T. Orcutt in Durham. The Section’s Pro Bono Committee Co-Chair Diana Santos Johnson presented the award.
Pamela Keenan is a 1987 graduate of Southern Methodist University School of Law, where she earned the Order of the Coif designation, and a 1984 graduate of the University of Texas at Arlington, where she graduated with highest honors. She also attended the Mississippi University for Women as a Presidential Scholar.
A longtime member of the Bankruptcy Section who has served on the section council and as an editor of the North Carolina Bankruptcy Manual, Keenan is also a past and the current president of the North Carolina Creditors Bar Association and past chair of the Eastern District of North Carolina’s Local Bankruptcy Rules Committee.
Shelley Koon Abel presents the Lifetime Achievement Award to Pamela Keenan.
But Keenan did not set out to practice bankruptcy law.
“I started out doing a lot of securities litigation, and fortune and fate brought me into the bankruptcy bar,” Keenan said. “People were just so gracious and kind in ‘schooling’ me on both the substantive law and the various local practices in the three districts. I stand on a lot of shoulders, and I am genuinely touched by how many people have been so generous to me over the years with their time and their talent.
“At the same time, I truly think having been able to practice among this group has been the biggest blessing of my life, mostly because everyone is so collegial and has such an overriding desire to figure out creative ways to make things work out so that everybody gets a little and everybody gives a little. That is just a joy for someone like me who is a natural problem-solver. It’s also been such a joy in my practice to be able to come to work every day and not have to deal with the petty fights, the one-upmanship, the sharp practices and the double-dealing that are unfortunately not uncommon in other litigation-related practice areas. Working every day across the table with people whom I can trust to do what they say they are going to do and whose word is their bond is priceless.”
However, she adds, professionalism and collegiality even in a bankruptcy bar are not a given.
“It is so unique to the North Carolina bankruptcy bar,” Keenan said. “I’m a part of several national networks of bankruptcy attorneys for my institutional creditor clients, so I often get to see how it’s done in other bankruptcy bars. Most of them are not really like ours here in North Carolina. The attorneys in those other bankruptcy bars often seem to engage in the same sharp practices and gamesmanship I see outside our North Carolina bankruptcy bar. Fortunately, though, quashing that kind of behavior starts at the top here in North Carolina. I’ve literally seen several of our bankruptcy judges look down from the bench at (mostly) out-of-state attorneys and tell them to sit down, stop yelling at their opponent, stop badgering a witness, stop taking sideswipes/making snarky remarks about the various other players in the case, and/or the like. As Judge Small once so succinctly put it: ‘We don’t do it that way here.’”
Keenan began her career with a large international firm and transitioned into the bankruptcy field when she moved to North Carolina.
“I landed here mostly by chance at the Kirschbaum firm, which has just been a dream job,” Keenan said in regard to Kirschbaum, Nanney, Keenan & Griffin, where she is a shareholder. “I could not have even conjured up a better fit for a working mom like myself. David Nanney, Chess Griffin and Ron Kirschbaum are just some of the dearest people I have ever met, and we quickly became hand in glove – we just naturally fit. So since 1998, I’ve gotten to come to work every day with really nice attorneys who I actually like and completely trust. Our staff is also made up of really nice people, who typically come and stay with us a long time, so I really did land in a sweet spot!”
Receiving the award, Keenan said, was a complete surprise.
“I was totally blindsided,” Keenan said. “Looking at who has been given the award ahead of me, I never, ever, in my wildest imagination, thought that I would be included in that list of people. You could have knocked me over with a feather. I was absolutely speechless, and so deeply honored, and then my very next thought was, ‘Oh my gosh, I have lots and lots and lots of thank-you notes to write!
“Nobody gets anywhere by themselves. There are so many people, beginning with Dick Hutson being the outstanding star on among them, who just out of the goodness of their hearts took me by the hand, led me along, brought me up, and taught me so many things about substantive bankruptcy law as well as the practice of bankruptcy law. I think I’m going to be trying to just absorb this immense honor for a very long time to come.”
Edward Boltz is a 1996 graduate of George Washington University Law School and a 1993 graduate of Washington University of St. Louis. He serves as managing partner of the Law Offices of John T. Orcutt, P.C.
Boltz served as the president of the National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys (NACBA) from 2013-16 and as a member of the American Bankruptcy Institute Consumer Bankruptcy Commission from 2017-19.
Diana Santos Johnson presents the Pro Bono Award to Edward C. Boltz.
“The NACBA is a consumer bankruptcy organization,” Boltz explained. “I went to my first conference in 1999 with my law partner, John Orcutt, and I’ve been to every conference since then. Starting back in 2003-04, I got involved in lobbying Congress regarding the bankruptcy law that eventually went into effect in 2005, fighting against that, or at least making it not as bad as it was before.
“That got me involved, because I’ve also always been interested in government, and from there, my involvement increased. I was the state chair for several years for North Carolina and then got elected to the Board of Directors and worked my way up since then and have been on the board now going on 18 years. It’s the largest organization representing consumer debtors’ attorneys for bankruptcy cases. We have about 3,000 members.”
The national exposure, Boltz continued, pairs well with his work within the NCBA, where he has served on the Bankruptcy Section Council and co-chaired the committee that created a Mortgage Modification Program for the North Carolina bankruptcy courts.
“It’s been really good,” Boltz said, “because the Bankruptcy Section has also given me a lot of opportunities to have an organization behind me to do some things. I, along with Joe Vonnegut, who is a foreclosure attorney down in Fayetteville, back in 2016 were encouraged by the section chair, John Bircher, to start a mortgage mediation program in the bankruptcy courts across North Carolina.
“With the Bankruptcy Section standing behind us, that gave the judges confidence that we weren’t just some wild-haired radicals. We were able to come up with a program that has been able to help a lot of folks keep their homes, and a lot of mortgage companies get mortgages back on track so that they can start making money too. It’s been a real success.
“Actually, the reason I am driving to New Bern right now is that I am working on a case that has had some bumps in it as we’ve tried to go through that program. But that’s one of the main things that the Bankruptcy Section has provided, in addition to collegiality and the opportunity to network with opposing counsel as friends in a lot of circumstances that we don’t have when we’re standing in a courtroom. That’s really how the Bankruptcy Section has been wonderful.”
Boltz was grateful to receive this recognition from the section for his pro bono service, which is a natural extension of lessons he learned long ago growing up in Michigan.
“I was very grateful that my peers recognized me for a lot of the work that I try to do in addition to my regular paying job,” said Boltz, who has regularly volunteered for 4ALL and Free Legal Answers.
“My parents were always a big example in that regard, and growing up as a Boy Scout, doing community service is not something that was really expected – it’s just what you do. I think it has just been bred into me. I am very fortunate in everything in my life, and I want to help out otherwise with people, whether directly or indirectly, trying to pay back to make our state and our country better than it is.
“I was very grateful to get the recognition of my peers, and it was a great capstone to the year for me. I really appreciated that.”
Previous recipients of the Bankruptcy Section awards are:
Lifetime Achievement Award
2011 – Trawick H. Stubbs
2012 – Richard M. Hutson II
2013 – John A. Northen
2014 – William E. Brewer Jr.
2015 – Christine L. Myatt
2016 – Albert F. Durham
2017 – David R. Badger
2018 – Wrennie Pitt
2019 – Kenneth Greene
2020 – Ben Hawfield
2021 – Terri L. Gardner
2022 – Richard D. Sparkman
2023 – Joseph W. Grier III
Pro Bono Award
2015 – Ciara Rogers
2016 – Jennifer Bennington
2017 – Matthew Crow
2018 – Michael Martinez
2019 – Lance Martin
2020 – Heather Culp
2021 – Richard Cook
2022 – Jennifer Lyday
2023 – Palmer Eugene (Tripp) Huffstetler III
Russell Rawlings is director of external affairs and communications for the North Carolina Bar Association.