Unmasking Some Great Consumer Cases from 2020 and 2021

Laurie K. Weatherford is the chapter 13 standing trustee for the Middle District of Florida in Orlando. Prior to her appointment in 1996, Ms. Weatherford was Of Counsel with the law firm of Maguire, Voorhis & Wells, representing primarily debtors and creditor committees in chapter 11 cases, and was a panel trustee. She tried a jury trial in the In re Braniff case and helped develop the Mortgage Modification Mediation Program for the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Orlando.

Ms. Weatherford frequently lectures on mortgage modification and various chapter 13 issues. She is a member of the National Association of Chapter 13 Trustees, for which she serves on its Human Resources Committee. She also served on the Board of Directors of the Central Florida Bankruptcy Law Association and is a past chairman of the Bankruptcy Committee of Orange County, Fla.

Ms. Weatherford received her B.A. with honors from the University of Florida and her J.D. with honors from Cumberland School of Law, where she was an honor court justice, a member of the International Law Moot Court Team and copy editor for the Cumberland Law Review.

Nicole M. Noel is a shareholder at Kass Shuler, P.A. in Tampa, Fla., where she has been practicing in the fields of bankruptcy and business litigation since 2009. She practices throughout the state of Florida in all districts.

Ms. Noel co-chairs the Case Law Update Subcommittee for the Real Property Finance and Lending Committee of the RPPTL Section of the Florida Bar, and co-chairs the Bankruptcy Practice Group for the American Legal and Financial Network (ALFN). Her published work includes “Was Brown a Rash Decision?” (The Cramdown, Summer 2014), “Incompatible Personalities: Investigating the Mutually Exclusive Nature of ? 1322(b)(2), (5)” (ABI Journal, November 2012), and “Stripping Down Your Spouse: Tenancy by the Entirety Property Ownership under ? 506” (ABI YLC Newsletter, September 2012).

Ms. Noel is active in the community and frequently volunteers her time to speak at local universities on such topics as ethical concerns facing young attorneys, time-management and first-year law practice pointers. She is an adjunct professor at St. Petersburg College, where she teaches bankruptcy and civil litigation, and she participated in the 2016 Next- Generation program held by the Bankruptcy Judges during the National Conference of Bankruptcy Judges. Most recently, she was named a Fellow of the Florida Bar Leadership Academy, as well as one of ALFN’s stand-out young professionals to watch in 2016.

Ms. Noel received her undergraduate degree from Florida State University and her M.B.A. and J.D. from Stetson University School of Business Administration and Stetson University College of Law, respectively.

Carmen Dellutri is the founder and president of The Dellutri Law Group in Fort Meyers, Fla., where he focuses his practice on personal injury, consumer bankruptcy and consumer protection. He actively litigates cases involving catastrophic injuries and wrongful death on behalf of the victims, and represents consumers in all forms of bankruptcy and consumer protection litigation.

Mr. Dellutri is a member of the Bars of New Jersey, New York and Florida. He is Board Certified in Consumer Bankruptcy Law by the American Board of Certification and is also a Florida Supreme Court Certified Circuit Court, County Court, Appellate and Family Law mediator and qualified arbitrator.

Mr. Dellutri is a member of ABI, the National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys (NACBA), the National Association of Consumer Advocates (NACA) and the National Association of Chapter 13 trustees.

Mr. Dellutri received his undergraduate degree from the University of South Florida and his J.D. in 1993 from Loyola University School of Law, during which time he clerked for Hon. Charles Ward of the Louisiana Fourth District Court of Appeals. He also received his LL.M. from Tulane University School of Law in 1994 and his M.B.A. from Florida Gulf Coast University in 1999.

Hon. Catherine P. McEwen is a U.S. Bankruptcy Judge for the Middle District of Florida in Tampa, appointed by the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals on Aug. 22, 2005, and an adjunct professor at Western Michigan University Cooley Law School. She is the first female judge appointed in her district. Prior to becoming a judge, she was in private practice for almost 23 years in Tampa and was a solo practitioner from 2001 until the date of her appointment to the bench.

Before opening her solo practice, she was a shareholder of Akerman Senterfitt & Eidson, P.A., formerly known as Moffitt, Hart & Herron, P.A., where she practiced law from 1982-2001 in its Tampa office, concentrating on commercial litigation with an emphasis on representing parties in bankruptcy cases. Judge McEwen was elected into the American Law Institute in 2012. Among her other honors are the Stetson University College of Law Distinguished Alumnus Award (2007), Hillsborough County Bar Association Jimmy Kynes Pro Bono Service Award (2008), the Stetson University College of Law J. Ben Watkins Award (2009), the Florida Association for Women Lawyers Leaders in the Law inaugural class designation (2010), the Tampa Bay Hispanic Bar Association’s Luis “Tony” Cabassa Award (2012), the George Edgecomb Bar Association’s Delano S. Stewart Diversity Award (2015), the inaugural Florida Supreme Court Chief Justice’s Distinguished Federal Judicial Service Award (2016), the Stetson Lawyers Alumni Association Ben C. Willard Award (2016), the University of South Florida Distinguished Alumna Award (2016) and the Bay Area Legal Services Inc. Judge Don Castor Justice Award (2016).

In 2017, Judge McEwen was appointed by Chief Justice John Roberts, Jr. to serve a two-year term as the nonvoting bankruptcy judge observer to the Judicial Conference of the United States, which ended on Sept. 30, 2019. Prior to becoming a lawyer, she was a sportswriter from 1975- 79 for the Tampa Tribune and the Tampa Times.

Judge McEwen received her B.A. in political science from the University of South Florida in 1979 and her J.D. cum laude from Stetson University in 1982.