Sean Hagan, the general counsel of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in Washington, D.C., will deliver the University of Texas School of Law’s Akard Lecture at the Four Seasons Hotel Austin on Thursday, November 18, 2010, at 5:00 p.m. Hagan, who is also the director of the IMF’s Legal Department, will speak on “Restructuring Corporate Debt in the Course of a Systemic Crisis.” The lecture, which will be presented in the hotel’s San Jacinto Ballroom, is free and open to the public. A reception in the San Jacinto Foyer and Patio will follow the lecture.
“Mr. Hagan has been closely involved in the Fund’s work both in the field working with distressed debtors, including sovereign debtors, and at the highest levels of policy making,” said UT Law Professor Jay L. Westbrook, a nationally prominent bankruptcy law scholar who will introduce Hagan at the Akard Lecture.
In his capacity as IMF general counsel, Hagan advises the Fund’s management, Executive Board, and membership on all legal aspects of the Fund’s operations, including its regulatory, advisory, and lending functions. Hagan has published extensively on both the law of the Fund and a broad range of legal issues relating to the prevention and resolution of financial crisis, with a particular emphasis on insolvency and the restructuring of debt, including sovereign debt.
Hagan’s publications regarding debt restructuring include “Designing a Legal Framework to Restructure Sovereign Debt” (Georgetown Journal of International Law, vol. 36, no. 2, 2005, pp. 299-402); Orderly and Effective Insolvency Procedures: Key Issues (Washington, D.C. International Monetary Fund, 1999); “Insolvency Reform and Economic Policy” (Connecticut Journal of International Law, vol. 17, no. 1, 2001, pp. 63-74); and “Sovereign Workouts: an IMF Perspective” (Chicago Journal of International Law, vol. 6, no. 1. 2005, pp. 203-218).
Prior to beginning work at the IMF, Hagan was in private practice, first in New York and subsequently in Tokyo. He received his JD from the Georgetown University Law Center and also received an MS in International Economic Policy from the London School of Economics and Political Science.
This will be the fourth John C. Akard Distinguished Lectureship. The distinguished scholars who have delivered the first three Akard lectures were Elizabeth Warren of Harvard Law School; Ronald Mann of Columbia Law School; and Dean Harry Rajak of the Sussex Law Faculty.
The John C. Akard Distinguished Lectureship Program was endowed by the generous gifts of many members of the Texas bankruptcy bar in honor of Judge John C. Akard, a 1957 UT Law graduate who served with great distinction for fourteen years as the U.S. Bankruptcy Judge in the Northern District of Texas, sitting in Lubbock and throughout much of West Texas. He continues to play a major role in the Law School’s bankruptcy conferences.
The Twenty-ninth Annual Jay L. Westbrook Bankruptcy Conference is also being held at the Four Seasons Hotel on November 18–19, 2010, and is offered by the School of Law’s Office of Continuing Legal Education (CLE).
Contact: Laura Castro, UT Communications, 512-232-1229, lcastro@law.utexas.edu.