DISTRESSED DAILY: Judge Shopping Is Easy Under NY, TX Rules

About half of all big bankruptcy cases filed by public companies were overseen by just three judges in the last two years, a statistic caused in part by court rules in New York and Texas that give corporations the chance to pick their jurist.

For decades, critics have long complained that the U.S. Bankruptcy Code allows so-called venue shopping, in which companies bypass the federal courthouse in their hometown for a jurisdiction that may have a friendlier bench of judges. Wilmington, Delaware is typically criticized for being a small town whose nine bankruptcy judges handle a high percentage of ...