#notalllawyershatemath: Where Mathematics and Lawyering Meet in Business/Bankruptcy Litigation
I am analytical. I like numbers. I like clear answers. Black and white. Not grey.
I was the Calculus member of my high school’s academic team in high school. Dad was an industrial engineer and the visual lens through which he viewed the world rubbed off on me. I initially majored in Physics because I appreciated how Calculus concepts could be applied to real life.
Fast forward 25 years. I love my work as a business lawyer. But, I still crave that opportunity to solve math problems (I did have a chance to be a financial analyst for two years before I started the firm). I just recently realize that, whenever I can, I attempt to solve my clients’ legal problems using spreadsheets and finite alternative scenarios. I reduce chaos and moving parts down to a formula, decision tree, or spreadsheet. There are only so many scenarios. There is a range of only so many possible outcomes. The law can only go so many ways.
Such an approach has worked really well for me in the context of settling business litigation. Recently, in bankruptcy litigation, I had to resolve the extent, amount, and priority of competing lien positions of 5 creditors (2 mortgage holders and 3 taxing bodies), on my clients’ commercial assets (including a building) and one of the owner’s residence. We tried to negotiate for months and no one was budging, but then I busted out my spreadsheets. I kept running the numbers given different assumptions regarding the value of the assets, whether to include interest and penalties, and given the two alternative legal outcomes as to whom should be first in lien priority. With the help of an esteemed mediator, we resolved the matter and successfully confirmed the plan of reorganization.
My abstract skills and fancy excel handywork also came in handy when I was about 29 (12 years ago, gasp), and working as a young associate. I developed an extensive series of “aging analysis” excel spreadsheets to utilize math to resolve a special type of bankruptcy litigation: preference litigation. The cases we handled were large dollar amounts in controversy, ranging from $15k- $8 million. Where a creditor is sued in a preference action (see first post on What the Heck is a Preference Action: Paying Off Favorite Creditors As a Business Tanks), there is an ordinary course of business defense. In order to mount this defense, a defendant should present an “aging analysis” of the length of time the parties were engaged in the transactions at issue.
We settled every time (with only one exception) and I am sure my extensive volumes of “aging analysis” spreadsheets helped. Maybe Dad would have preferred that I became an engineer like him. I don’t know. I do know that he would be proud of the way I approach my work now. Both my clients and I can thank my science and math teachers (Mr. Pete Karpyk, Mr. Phil Carey, Mrs. Kladakis, Mr. J.) for helping me be able to create these frameworks in which I can more readily resolve legal problems. So remember, #notalllawyershatemath.
Stay tuned for another post on exactly what is an “aging analysis” to be used to mount an ordinary course defense in a preference action.
Salene is a business and bankruptcy lawyer. This post does not constitute legal advice and does not constitute a guarantee of any legal outcome. The facts and legal issues vary from case to case; and not all outcomes will be the same.