Partner - Austin office - (512) 617-5204
dstum@diamondmccarthy.com
Doug Stum joined Diamond McCarthy at the firm's inception, after assisting the firm's founding partners as an associate of Hughes & Luce, L.L.P. His primary area of practice is in business reorganization and bankruptcy, with a focus on representing trustees, litigation and liquidating trusts, official committees and individual creditors and debtors in all phases of bankruptcy proceedings and related insolvency litigation. He has also represented individual and corporate clients in other commercial litigation in various federal and state courts. His representative cases and matters include:
- Representation of The Empire Creditor Trust, the post-confirmation liquidating agent for Empire Funding Corp., in the prosecution and disposition of numerous proceedings relating to objections brought against alleged creditors' claims and/or to affirmative actions for avoidance and recovery of preferential transfers;
- Representation of the Official Unsecured Creditors' Committee appointed in the Livent bankruptcy cases, as part of a special litigation counsel team advising the Committee in relation to equitable subordination proceedings brought on behalf of the Livent debtors' estates against Livent's major pre-petition lender, and on related bankruptcy issues;
- Representation of Jewel Recovery, L.P., the post-confirmation liquidating agent for the Zale and Gordon Jewelry corporations, in litigation to recover sums fraudulently transferred in the Zale-Gordon leveraged buyout and in related litigation against the professionals involved in that LBO;
- Representation of several of the Chapter 7 Trustees appointed to the standing trustee panel in the federal Western District of Texas, Austin Division, in various cases requiring engagements on a general or special counsel basis;
- Representation of national and international secured lenders in bankruptcy-related litigation over lien priority and enforcement issues; and
- Representation of the secured lenders to the estate of a decedent, in litigation over a multi-million dollar tax lien priority dispute with the I.R.S., resulting in an "across-the-board" judgment at trial in favor of the clients.
Doug received his B.A. degree from the University of South Florida (1986) and J.D. degree (with honors) from Loyola School of Law - New Orleans (1996). He received the
Loyola Law Review's "Most Valuable Member" award (1996), represented clients as a student-practitioner in cases before the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals (1995-96), and competed in the Willem C. Vis International Commercial Arbitration Moot (Vienna, Austria 1996). While a full-time associate, Doug also earned his M.B.A. from The University of Texas - Austin (2003).
Doug is admitted to practice in all state and federal courts in Texas, and before the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. He is a member of the State Bar of Texas, the Travis County, American and Fifth Circuit Bar Associations, and the Robert Calvert Chapter of American Inns of Court. He has been a member of the Austin Bankruptcy Bar Association since 1997, a member of its council since 2000 and, in 2003-2004, is acting as Secretary. Among his publications, Doug co-authored Protecting Intellectual Property Interests in Bankruptcy: It's Not Patently Obvious for the State Bar of Texas Advanced Business Bankruptcy Law Course (1997).
Mr. Stum is a member of the State Bar of Texas, the American and Travis County Bar Associations, and a member of the Austin Bankruptcy Lawyers Association's council (2000). He is admitted to practice in all state and federal courts in Texas, and before the United States Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. Among his publications, Mr. Stum (with several members of Hughes & Luce) co-authored
Protecting Intellectual Property Interests in Bankruptcy: It's Not Patently Obvious, originally presented at the State Bar of Texas Advanced Business Bankruptcy Law Course (April 1997).
