U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Steven Rhodes, one of Detroit’s most experienced judges known for running a strict courtroom, has been picked to oversee the Detroit’s historic bankruptcy case, the biggest such filing in the nation’s history involving more than $18 billion in debts that officials say piled up over 60 years.
And just as legal experts had predicted, Detroit’s financial fate will rest in the hands of a hometown judge who has more than just legal skills. Outside the courtroom, Rhodes plays rhythm guitar in a classic rock house band called the Indubitable Equivalents, according to the band’s website. The group says it’s the band of the American Bankruptcy Institute (ABI), a trade association for bankruptcy professionals, and that Rhodes picked up his guitar skills from his father at the age of 15, later serenading his wife with tunes such as “Sound of Silence” and “Eve of Destruction.”
The latter song is fitting for the historic municipal bankruptcy case that Rhodes would inherit decades later.
Rhodes, a University of Michigan Law School graduate who has been a bankruptcy judge in the Eastern District of Michigan since 1985, also has ties to the region, unlike those who oversaw the bankruptcy cases of Detroit automotive giants General Motors and Chrysler. Their bankruptcy cases were filed in New York.
Detroit’s will stay here, where, as legal experts explained, all of its assets are. . .