Louis Phillips
Mr. Louis M. Phillips
Partner
Kelly Hart Pitre
https://kellyhart.com/
Louis M. Phillips is a partner at Kelly Hart & Pitre and leader of the firm's Bankruptcy & Business Reorg. practice. Mr. Phillips provides legal representation and consultation for debtors, creditors, and trustees over a broad practice area, including transaction and business structuring and restructuring, bankruptcy reorganization, and bankruptcy and commercial litigation. He also handles civil cases in state and federal courts and has handled matters before the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.
Mr. Phillips represents debtors, debtors-in-possession, and creditors in Chapter 11 cases, borrowers and lenders in loan restructuring and workouts, and entities of all types in all practice areas of bankruptcy cases and proceedings.
Mr. Phillips serves as the permanent chair of the Annual Bankruptcy Law Seminar sponsored by the Louisiana State University Center for Continuing Professional Development, a program he developed in 1995. He has taught educational programs on bankruptcy law for state judges, and has been an Adjunct Professor of Law at LSU Law School since 1988. Phillips was formerly a contributing editor to the Norton Bankruptcy Law and Practice 2nd and is the author of numerous articles for law reviews and other periodicals. Mr. Phillips is a frequent speaker and writer for legal education seminars across the country, including the Advanced Bankruptcy Course of the State Bar of Texas, Western District of Texas Bankruptcy Bench Bar; LSU Annual Bankruptcy Law Seminar, LSU Family Law and Recent Developments in Law Jurisprudence Seminars, and seminars sponsored by such esteemed groups as Stetson University College of Law, University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law, Texas Tech School of Law, Norton Institutes on Bankruptcy Law, American Bankruptcy Institute, National Association of Bankruptcy Trustees, National Association of Chapter 13 Trustees, Rocky Mountain Bankruptcy Symposium Law Education Institute, 5th Circuit Bench-Bar Bankruptcy Conference, Mississippi Bankruptcy Conference, Bankruptcy Law Institute, MidSouth Commercial Law Institute, the Annual Oil & Gas Law Conference, and the American Bar Association as well as numerous federal district bar associations and those of and in the states of Louisiana, Minnesota, Ohio, Oregon, Tennessee, Washington and Wisconsin. Among his many other speaking engagements are lectures to the National Association of Attorneys General, Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys, and VISA International.
From 1988 - 2002, Mr. Phillips served as the Chief U.S. Bankruptcy Judge for the Middle District of Louisiana. During his tenure, he authored numerous opinions of first impression of Louisiana state law and bankruptcy law, and was the author of a number of opinions that ultimately were adopted by the Fifth Circuit and other courts as the law of those courts (i.e., Matter of Mercer, 246 F.3d 391 (5th Cir.2001) involving credit card fraud cases under section 523(a)(2) and Matter of Orso, 283 F.3d 686 (5th Cir. 2002) (wherein the Court reversed the panel and prior jurisprudence concerning the Louisiana law exemption over structured settlement annuities).
Mr. Phillips presided over the first conversion to a totally electronic filing and docketing system within the Federal Courts of the United States.
Graham Ralston
Graham M. Ralston
Regions Bank
Graham M. Ralston, a native of New Orleans, joined Regions Bank in 2013 as Commercial Banking Executive for the South Louisiana Market and was also named New Orleans Market President in early 2016. Prior to joining Regions Bank, he led a commercial banking group at Whitney Bank in New Orleans, where he began his career in 1997. Mr. Ralston earned a BA in Economics from the University of Texas at Austin and an MBA from Tulane University. He also earned a CFA Charter in 2006 and is a past President of the CFA Society of Louisiana.

Mr. Ralston is a member of the Business Council of Greater New Orleans and is currently serving on the boards of GNO, Inc., the Bureau of Governmental Research, the NO/LA Angel Network, the Regional Loan Corporation, University of Holy Cross and the Academy of the Sacred Heart and is also a past Board President of the Preservation Resource Center.
Bill Rochelle
Mr. Bill J. Rochelle III
American Bankruptcy Institute
Bill Rochelle joined the American Bankruptcy Institute in 2015 as its Editor-at-Large, writing every day on developments in consumer and reorganization law. For the prior nine years, he was the bankruptcy columnist for Bloomberg News.
Bill got his undergraduate and law degrees from Columbia University, where he received Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar awards from the law school. Before turning to journalism, he practiced bankruptcy law for 35 years, including 17 years as a partner in the New York office of Fulbright & Jaworski LLP.
In addition to writing, Bill travels the country for ABI, speaking to bar groups and professional organizations on hot topics in the turnaround community and trends in consumer bankruptcies.
Paul Stewart
Mr. Paul Douglas Stewart Jr.
Partner
Stewart Robbins Brown & Altazan, LLC
http://www.stewartrobbins.com
A Certified Business Bankruptcy Specialist, Mr. Stewart is licensed in Louisiana and clerked for the Honorable Louis M. Phillips from 1998–2000.

Mr. Stewart is a founding member of the firm. He has authored numerous bankruptcy related articles over the past 20 years and lectures extensively on bankruptcy topics. Mr. Stewart regularly represents creditor committees, debtors-in-possession, and trustees in commercial bankruptcy cases across the country. Mr. Stewart holds the designation of Advocate from the National Institute of Trial Advocacy, and is perennially recognized by Super Lawyers, Top Attorneys, U.S. Leaders in Law, and others as an outstanding lawyer in the area of Bankruptcy.
Robert Summerhays
Hon. Robert R. Summerhays
United States District Judge
U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana
Judge Robert Summerhays was appointed to the United States District Court for the Western District of Louisiana by President Trump in September 2018. Prior to this appointment, Judge Summerhays served as the Chief Bankruptcy Judge of the Western District of Louisiana. Judge Summerhays was previously a partner in the law firm of Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP, where his primary practice area was federal court litigation. Judge Summerhays served as a law clerk for Judge W. Eugene Davis (U.S. Court of Appeals) in Lafayette from 1994 to 1995. Judge Summerhays received his law degree in 1994 from the University of Texas at Austin, where he was an Associate Editor of the Texas Law Review.
Jon Thornburg
Mr. Jon C Thornburg
Chapter 13 Trustee
Office of Chapter 13 Trustee Jon C Thornburg
Jon C. Thornburg was appointed Chapter 13 Trustee for Alexandria, Louisiana, in August 2008. The Alexandria division covers nine parishes in the central region of Louisiana and is part of the Western District of Louisiana.

Jon is certified by the American Board of Certification in Consumer Bankruptcy Law and is admitted to practice law in Mississippi, California, and on his own behalf as trustee in Chapter 13 cases assigned to him in the Alexandria Division of the U. S. Bankruptcy Court for the Western District of Louisiana.

As a member of the National Association of Chapter 13 Bankruptcy Trustees (NACTT) he has served on the Standing Trustees Alliance for Computer Security Committee (STACS), the Finance Committee, the NACTT Foundation Board, and on the NACTT Board of Directors.

From 1996 until his appointment, he practiced law in the area of consumer bankruptcy, handling chapter 7 and chapter 13 cases, primarily representing debtors. He practiced law in San Diego, California, from 1993 until 2003, then Biloxi, Mississippi, from 2003 until 2008.

He graduated Cum Laude from National University School of Law in San Diego, California, in 1993. In Law School he was on Law Review, received the S.H.A.P.E. Award (Student Honors Advisory Program for Excellence) three years in a row, and the American Jurisprudence Award in Bankruptcy. He also holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Business Administration.
Rachel Vogeltanz
Ms. Rachel Thyre Vogeltanz
Attorney
The Law Office of Rachel Thyre Vogeltanz, LLC
http://rachel.law
Rachel Thyre Vogeltanz graduated second in her law school class at the University of California at Davis. After passing the California bar exam, she started out in a boutique bankruptcy firm where she learned on the job, doing both consumer and commercial work. She soon returned to her home state of Louisiana, where she first worked as a criminal law clerk at the Louisiana Supreme Court, and since then has primarily represented bankruptcy clients. Board-certified in consumer bankruptcy by the Louisiana Board of Legal Specialization and the American Board of Certification, she is a member of the National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys and the National Association of Consumer Advocates. Rachel is a solo practitioner in Covington.
Stephen Wheelis
Judge Stephen D. Wheelis
Judge
United States Bankruptcy Court for the Western District of Louisiana
http://www.lawb.uscourts.gov
Stephen D. Wheelis was appointed by the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals on April 25, 2019 to serve as a Bankruptcy Judge for the U. S. Bankruptcy Court, W. D. of Louisiana at Alexandria and Monroe. Prior to his appointment, he was a shareholder of Wheelis & Rozanski, APLC, in Alexandria for over 20 years and initially practiced as a partner with Provosty, Sadler & deLaunay for 14 years.
His practice included representation of creditors and trustees in all bankruptcy chapters, banking, business & commercial law, litigation & appeals. He actively practiced bankruptcy law throughout all Districts of Louisiana and in many other states, pro hac vice.
He is a Board Certified Business Bankruptcy Specialist, certified by the Louisiana Supreme Court and the American Board of Certification since January 1, 1997. He served from 2011-2019 on the Board of Directors of the American Board of Certification, the Standards and Faculty Committees. He has been a member of the American Bankruptcy Institute for more than 20 years. He served as a member of the LSBA Bankruptcy Law Advisory Commission, 1995 - 1998 and 2018-2019, and chaired the LSBA Board of Legal Specialization from 2009-2010. He served as an Assistant Bar Examiner for Code III from 2005-2019 and held memberships in the Louisiana Bankers Association, serving on the Bank Counsel Committee, as well as the Louisiana State, American and Alexandria Bar Associations.
On December 3, 2021, He was appointed to a 3 year term as the 5th Circuit representative on the Bankruptcy Judges Advisory Group for the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. He is currently a member of the Crossroads American Inns of Court, The Judge Jerry A. Brown Louisiana Bankruptcy Inn of Court, the Federal Bar Association, The National Conference of Bankruptcy Judges, serving as Chair of the NextGeneration Committee, and an Associate Member of NACTT.
He appeared consecutively in the annual editions of Louisiana Super Lawyers, Business Bankruptcy/Creditor Rights, from 2007-2019. He previously served as an adjunct professor for paralegal studies at Northwestern State University and Louisiana College and taught courses for the American Institute of Banking.
Judge Wheelis received his J.D. Degree in 1985 from Tulane University School of Law and his B.A. in Legal Studies from Northeast Louisiana University (now ULM) in 1981.