Pre-Packaged Private Student Loan Adversaries — CLE Materials

CLE Deliverables

Three documents. Use them tomorrow.

These are the operational tools from the presentation. They are designed to be implemented immediately — not filed away. If you are going to build this system in your practice, start with the checklist.

Phase 1 of 3

Case Preparation Checklist

The five-phase pre-filing checklist mapping to each gate: NEED → VALUE → WEIGHT → LEVERAGE → CONTROL. This is the spine of the entire system.

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Phase 2 of 3

Sample Adversary Timeline

Four-stage lifecycle table with approximate timelines, pillar mapping, and outcome modeling for each stage. Most properly structured cases resolve in Stage 3.

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Phase 3 of 3

Discovery Strategy Guide

Defensive discipline, offensive discovery, inflection markers, and collapse signals. The full discovery framework — including what to send, when to send it, and what to watch for.

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Key Case Law

The legal foundation

These are the cases referenced in the presentation. The landscape has shifted — and these decisions are where the shift is documented.

"§ 523 does not require efforts to make nominal payments that will never retire the debt."

Judge Connolly · Bankr. W.D. Va. · Rosen v. Trellis · March 2025

Case	Court	Year	Key point
Rosen v. Texas Guaranteed Student Loan Corp. (Trellis) Read opinion →	Bankr. W.D. Va. Connolly, J.	2025	The standard is the ability to repay the loan, not to make nominal payments that will never retire the debt. Private lenders have no income-driven repayment and no forgiveness programs. This was itself a Rule 4007(b) reopening — a 79-year-old debtor, 20 years of payments, still owed more than he originally borrowed.
Homaidan v. Sallie Mae, Inc. 3 F.4th 595	2d Cir.	2021	"Educational benefit" under § 523(a)(8)(A)(ii) covers only conditional grants like scholarships and stipends — not commercial loans. The back door is closed in the Second Circuit.
In re Mazloom 648 B.R. 1	Bankr. N.D.N.Y.	2023	Analyzed whether a private loan met the § 523(a)(8)(B) qualified education loan definition. Part of the growing roadmap for front-door challenges.
Golden v. JP Morgan Chase Bank 596 B.R. 239	Bankr. E.D.N.Y.	2019	Qualified education loan challenge roadmap. Ongoing class action against PHEAA/AES for collecting on discharged debt.
In re Campbell 547 B.R. 49	Bankr. E.D.N.Y.	2016	One of the first courts to hold that a private loan was not an "educational benefit" — the early case that started closing the back door.
Brunner v. N.Y. State Higher Educ. Servs. Corp. 831 F.2d 395	2d Cir.	1987	The three-prong undue hardship test applied in the majority of circuits. The standard the presentation is designed to address head-on — before the complaint is filed.

Working Together

What happens when a client comes to me

If you run that search on your closed files tomorrow and something comes up — a Navient account, a National Collegiate trust, a balance over $20,000, a cosigner — here is exactly what the process looks like.

01

You stay in the relationship

You remain the attorney of record. You handle the local court filings and serve as local counsel. Your client relationship stays intact — I work in the background, not in front of your client.

02

I handle everything else

I draft the complaint, prepare the pre-filing package, manage discovery, and handle all negotiations with opposing counsel. I do not Pro Hac Vice in. Everything runs through you as the filing attorney.

03

You earn a referral fee

You receive a referral fee for the matter. The fee structure is straightforward and discussed at the outset — no ambiguity. You did right by your client and got compensated for it.

Think of it the way private lenders structure their national counsel relationships. The national firm handles the strategy and the substance. The local firm handles the court. Everyone knows their role. The client gets the best outcome.

Who I Work With

I don't do general consumer bankruptcy. This is the only thing I do.

I am not a general consumer bankruptcy practitioner. I do not take Chapter 7 cases, Chapter 13 cases, or general debt relief matters. Private student loan adversary proceedings are the entirety of my litigation practice — which means I am not competing with you for your clients. I am a resource for the specific cases you do not want to build a system around.

The attorneys I work with are experienced consumer bankruptcy practitioners who have identified private student loan debt in their clients' files and want to do right by those clients without taking on a litigation-heavy practice they did not sign up for. If that describes you, we should talk.

Let's Talk

Found a file worth looking at?

Run the three-step search. If something comes up — a Navient account, a National Collegiate trust, a balance over $20,000, a cosigner — I'm happy to take a look with you. No pitch. Just a conversation about whether the case makes sense.

Ask to speak with Stanley

This is a peer conversation, not an intake call. If the case isn't right for this, I'll tell you that too.