He is well prepared, intellectually curious and knows the hard questions to ask, lawyers said. There are few precedents to guide Montali in many of the novel legal questions he is likely to be asked to rule upon. The law is unclear. Doubtful, bankruptcy lawyers said. Montali will have to reconcile state utility law and federal energy law with bankruptcy law.
Some people go on the bench to retire.
He wants his cases to go somewhere, and he tries to encourage people to make progress. Before he was appointed to the bench, Montali had practiced bankruptcy law for more than two decades. The bankruptcy bar he was a part of is relatively small, and the lawyers who practice it know one another. Because these lawyers are likely to be players together in many cases over the years, trustworthiness is important, bankruptcy attorneys said. Whereas a business litigator may know exactly what he or she will be doing two months from now, bankruptcy lawyers tend to operate on tight deadlines with little notice.