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Chris Hampson

@chrishampsonlaw.bsky.social
5.9K followers 896 following 500 posts

Law Professor at the University of Florida (Bankruptcy, Insolvency & Jubilee). Husband, father, cat person, puns.

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Chris Hampson @chrishampsonlaw.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Some hospitals check for financial aid eligibility for billing. Seems like a great idea to this bankruptcy scholar. Good reporting here, with nice insights from Erin Fuse Brown tradeoffs.org/2026/10/01/h...
tradeoffs.org
Hidden Help: A New Push for Hospitals to Prevent Medical Debt
Hospitals can automatically wipe out the cost of care for low-income patients. A Tradeoffs analysis finds that hospitals in Texas could be doing more to protect people from unaffordable bills.
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Chris Hampson @chrishampsonlaw.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Vermont's Catholic diocese moves to dismiss its bankruptcy case, arguing that negotiations toward a plan have stalled. Fascinating move, ties directly into my article on bankruptcy abstention, on SSRN here: papers.ssrn.com/abstract=619... cases.stretto.com/public/380/1...
papers.ssrn.com
Bankruptcy Abstention
Courts have been finding ways to avoid hearing bankruptcy cases for a long time. This practice distinguishes bankruptcy from other types of federal cases. The f
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Chris Hampson @chrishampsonlaw.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
We'll see what happens! [fin]
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Chris Hampson @chrishampsonlaw.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
In another, I refute the argument that the posters are passive and point out that Christians don't think the Word of God is passive at all: canopyforum.org/2026/05/22/f...
canopyforum.org
"For the Word of God is Posted and Passive" by Christopher D. Hampson - Canopy Forum
An SB 10 compliant Poster. Photo by author. The Ten Commandments are almost certainly headed back to the Supreme Court. Over the past couple of years, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Texas have all passed st...
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Chris Hampson @chrishampsonlaw.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
I've now written several pieces about this issue. In one, I pointed out that the version of the Ten Commandments that some states require strips away the narrative context of the Jubilee: papers.ssrn.com/abstract=543...
papers.ssrn.com
The Ten Commandments, Stripped of Slavery, Exodus & Jubilee
<div> The Ten Commandments are back on public classroom <span>walls and in federal court, after several states passed new laws </span><span>requiring
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Chris Hampson @chrishampsonlaw.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Excellent briefing by Mark Storslee, John Meiser, and Meredith Kessler of the Notre Dame Law School's Lindsay and Matt Moroun Religious Liberty Clinic.
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Chris Hampson @chrishampsonlaw.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
I'm honored to be part of a group of leading law and religion scholars, all of whom think Texas and the Fifth Circuit are going in the wrong direction here.
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Chris Hampson @chrishampsonlaw.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Texas mandates that the Ten Commandments be posted in public school classrooms. I think that's bad constitutional law and bad theology, so I joined this excellent brief urging the Supreme Court to take up the case and reverse. lnkd.in/p/eCYBf7A3
lnkd.in
Religion Scholars Amicus Brief | Chris Hampson
Texas mandates that the Ten Commandments be posted in public school classrooms. I think that's bad constitutional law and bad theology, so I joined this excellent brief urging the Supreme Court to ta...
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Chris Hampson @chrishampsonlaw.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
I have a slide with just this image for Bankruptcy class tomorrow. Will they know what it means?
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Chris Hampson @chrishampsonlaw.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Barber: Shall I trim your eyebrows? Me: No, I need them like this for work.
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Chris Hampson @chrishampsonlaw.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
As reported! www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
bloomberg.com
Florida’s Private Railroad Brightline Files for Bankruptcy
Florida’s Brightline has filed for bankruptcy protection after years of lower-than-expected revenue left it unable to repay billions it borrowed to finance the Miami-to-Orlando private railroad.
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Chris Hampson @chrishampsonlaw.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
🚨Until recently, my leading examples were LTL Management and Bestwall. We now get a cert petition in DBMP (CertainTeed) and JPK NewCo headed to the D.C. Circuit. The issue is percolating! I continue to think the Supremes will have to take it on [fin]
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Chris Hampson @chrishampsonlaw.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
📸Here’s yours truly presenting on 350 years of bankruptcy law, exploring whether some kind of insolvency is a constitutional or jurisdictional requirement for a bankruptcy case (yes, mostly). My paper is available here: papers.ssrn.com/abstract=726...
papers.ssrn.com
The Bankruptcy Power and the Meaning of Insolvency
In 2017, Bestwall LLC filed for bankruptcy even though a generous funding agreement from its parent, Georgia-Pacific, meant it could pay “any conceivable liabil
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Chris Hampson @chrishampsonlaw.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
🏤My favorite conference is the Wharton-Harvard-Chicago Insolvency & Restructuring Conference, put on every fall by David Skeel, Vince Buccola, Mark Roe, and Jared Ellias.
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Chris Hampson @chrishampsonlaw.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Has the OLC written some new memo about the Hatch Act that it hasn’t made public?
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Chris Hampson @chrishampsonlaw.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Big bankruptcy ahead. And yet another example of a case that would have made more sense in a hometown venure (here, MD Fla or SD Fla). www.wsj.com/pro/bankrupt...
wsj.com
Exclusive | Florida Railroad Brightline Plans Imminent Chapter 11 in New Jersey
The Fortress Investment Group-backed railroad plans a bankruptcy filing after struggling with $5.5 billion in debt and slow ridership growth.
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Chris Hampson @chrishampsonlaw.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
“Goooooood afternoon. We’ve reached our cruising altitude for this brief flight to Minas Tirith. Our service crew will be coming around shortly with tea and lembas bread. And thank you for choosing Elvish Airlines.”
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Chris Hampson @chrishampsonlaw.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Nice analysis here by Adam Levitin on potential receivership (not bankruptcy) for the Kennedy Center. creditslips.org/2026/09/14/a...
creditslips.org
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Chris Hampson @chrishampsonlaw.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
St. Peter: Never, Lord! This shall never happen to you! Jesus: Look, I *will* die on this hill.
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Chris Hampson @chrishampsonlaw.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
Are junior legal scholars getting advice not to interact with the secondary literature above the line and relegate it all to the footnotes? That hand-waving approach doesn’t make the lit review sound as authoritative as you think it does.
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Chris Hampson @chrishampsonlaw.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
I am planning on it, just need to update my notes to reflect a few adjustments I made live.
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Chris Hampson @chrishampsonlaw.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
Excerpt about 9/11 from a talk I gave to Christian faculty at UF today.
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Chris Hampson @chrishampsonlaw.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Some of these debt collection practices strike me as very normal, actually. Others offend a practice we abolished a long, long time ago. We threw debtors' prisons in the dustbin of history. Let's keep them there.
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Chris Hampson @chrishampsonlaw.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Similarly, having a debtor post *bond* to purge the arrest? That's literally imprisonment for debt. The arrest warrant serves to get the debtor into court and is extinguished thereafter. These aren't criminal debts. I don't expect to see the word "bond" here at all.
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Chris Hampson @chrishampsonlaw.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Setting one debtor exam doesn't strike me as abusive. Repeated court dates when the creditor *knows* the debtor is judgment proof, without any reason to think the situation has changed, is abusing court process to reinvent debtors' prisons.
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Chris Hampson @chrishampsonlaw.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
That practice is a hair's breadth away from imprisonment for debt, and when abused it collapses into the old practice. I and several other law scholars have urged caution. papers.ssrn.com/abstract=446...
papers.ssrn.com
Harsh Creditor Remedies and the Role of the Redeemer
The concept of the judgment-proof or collection-proof debtor is fundamental to our understanding of civil law and of what distinguishes it from criminal law. Bu
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Chris Hampson @chrishampsonlaw.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Even post-ban, creditors can set court dates to discover assets. The hearings have different names in different states, like "debtor examination." If the debtor doesn't show,the court will issue an arrest warrant, which should purge once the debtor shows up in court.
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Chris Hampson @chrishampsonlaw.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Ok, about this news story🧵: www.nytimes.com/2026/09/08/u... The states abolished imprisonment for debt long ago, beginning with Kentucky in 1821. I wrote about this in my student Note and my very first law review article: papers.ssrn.com/abstract=282... papers.ssrn.com/abstract=263...
nytimes.com
Roger Marshall Sued 700 Patients for Debts; 81 Were Arrested. Now He’s a Senator.
Patients sued by Senator Roger Marshall of Kansas were routinely charged 18 percent interest, The Times found. Some had bank accounts garnished.
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Chris Hampson @chrishampsonlaw.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
LIV Golf filed for chapter 11 yesterday in New Jersey. Hearing today at 2pm. It points to Saudi Arabia's April decision to cease continued funding as a key driver of its financial distress and bankruptcy filing. cases.omniagentsolutions.com/documents/in...
cases.omniagentsolutions.com
LIV Golf New Jersey LLC: Documents List
LIV Golf New Jersey LLC: Documents List
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Chris Hampson @chrishampsonlaw.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
After meeting in Asheville, NC, the G20 (unanimously apart from China) agree on Para. 13 here, describing that debt sustainability is a major issue moving forward (bat signal, @agelpern.bsky.social) home.treasury.gov/news/press-r...
home.treasury.gov
G20 Chair’s Statement
Second Meeting of G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors Asheville, United States of America We, the G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors who assembled in Asheville, North Carolina, on August 31 and September 1, 2026, met to advance the G20 Finance track priorities for 2026. We …
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Chris Hampson @chrishampsonlaw.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
Had some extra time in London, so I went to the UK National Archive in Kew to read through treason indictments and jury forms from the Baga de Secretis (bag of secrets) from 1746.
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Chris Hampson @chrishampsonlaw.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
Look, all I said was, 13 is a fine number, even if they aren’t all the same age or ability, but we also need a burglar.
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Chris Hampson @chrishampsonlaw.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
Thank you!
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Chris Hampson @chrishampsonlaw.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
"Claude Sonnet 5" and I just co-authored this sonnet, alternating lines. Can you tell which lines I wrote and which Claude wrote? Also, Pangram 4.0 thought this text was 100% human-written (with limited confidence because it is a short text).
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Chris Hampson @chrishampsonlaw.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
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Chris Hampson @chrishampsonlaw.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
Thank you!
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Chris Hampson @chrishampsonlaw.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
I'm excited to share that this piece is now forthcoming in the Cardozo Law Review -- very much looking forward to working with their editorial team. Lots of workshopping and editing still to do, so I'm open to comments, questions, disagreements, etc.!
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Chris Hampson @chrishampsonlaw.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
Personal bankruptcy trend line is 📈 www.salon.com/2026/08/29/p...
salon.com
Personal bankruptcy filings are soaring in 2026, signaling growing economic distress - Salon.com
Here's what to know about this growing trend
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Chris Hampson @chrishampsonlaw.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
What debts should be forgiven? And who decides? www.forbes.com/sites/adammi...
forbes.com
Student Loan Forgiveness Threatened Again As Education Department Appeals Court Losses
The Education Department has appealed two court rulings that had blocked proposed new rules to restrict student loan forgiveness under PSLF.
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Chris Hampson @chrishampsonlaw.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
January 21, 2027 is the first full day on which Trump resigning or being impeached doesn’t cost Vance the potential for 2 terms under the 20A and 22A. If Vance began serving then, he could serve out Trump’s 2 years and then run for 8 more. I wonder who is watching the calendar.
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Chris Hampson @chrishampsonlaw.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
Connected w @bloomberglaw.com for this piece. The First Brands plan reminded me of Sears, where the judge approved a confirmation order with a floating effective date ... that took 3 years to reach! I don't think judges want to be in that situation. news.bloomberglaw.com/bankruptcy-l...
news.bloomberglaw.com
First Brands Plan Denial Gives Teeth to Bankruptcy Feasibility
A Texas judge’s ruling rejecting a plan for First Brands, the bankrupt auto parts giant that pinned its recovery hopes on a litigation trust, sends a caution that a liquidating Chapter 11 plan must be...
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Chris Hampson @chrishampsonlaw.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
Every time I walk to the faculty lounge, I bring two empty coffee mugs, and I leave with one full coffee mug. In theory, that means my office should contain zero empty coffee mugs.
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Chris Hampson @chrishampsonlaw.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
Sleek! What’s the font?
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Chris Hampson @chrishampsonlaw.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
It doesn’t make sense to me to treat the public debt of the United States and the private indebtedness of Americans with the same tools.
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Chris Hampson @chrishampsonlaw.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
No, that’s either called odious debt or just … default!
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Chris Hampson @chrishampsonlaw.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
The biblical Jubilee did purport to forgive private debts but because it was regularized (unlike the Sumerian model), creditors could account for it ex ante, a point reflected in the Hebrew Bible. papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
papers.ssrn.com
The Spirit of Jubilee
<p><span>The Jubilee texts of the Hebrew Bible call for debts to be forgiven and enslaved persons freed every seven years and for farmland to be restored to fam
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Chris Hampson @chrishampsonlaw.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
Including no imprisonment for debt! papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
papers.ssrn.com
State Bans on Debtors' Prisons and Criminal Justice Debt
Since the 1990s, and increasingly in the wake of the Great Recession, many municipalities, forced to operate under tight budgetary constraints, have turned to t
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Chris Hampson @chrishampsonlaw.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
I wonder how many legal opinions I've read in 12+ years of studying, practicing, and teaching law.
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Chris Hampson @chrishampsonlaw.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
That doesn't mean we can't have sweeping relief. I propose that we think of Jubilee through the American lens of "reconstruction." Lots of ideas in my essay linked above [end]
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Chris Hampson @chrishampsonlaw.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
I've argued for what I call the "spirit of Jubilee." The Hebrews never observed it literally, and without an economy built on regular Jubilee observance, being literalistic here would break more than it fixes. papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
papers.ssrn.com
The Spirit of Jubilee
<p><span>The Jubilee texts of the Hebrew Bible call for debts to be forgiven and enslaved persons freed every seven years and for farmland to be restored to fam
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