However, Roberta A. Deangelis, acting U.S. Bankruptcy Trustee for Region Three in the mid-Atlantic states, said trustees nationally work hard to challenge and stop any conflicts of interest or too-high charges that they identify in cases.

She said in 2003, the U.S. Trustee Program filed a total of 3,746 formal objections in court to fees or other situations. "As best we can quantify the results, our actions directly resulted in fee or expense reductions of $44.8 million," she said.

LoPucki said the situation still "is having an adverse effect on reorganizing companies." He said those in the busiest courts "were two to 10 times more likely to fail after bankruptcy than were comparable companies reorganized in other courts."

LoPucki suggested changing rules that allow forum shopping, either requiring corporations to file where they are incorporated or headquartered, or establishing three or four regional courts to handle large bankruptcy cases.

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