Kenneth J. Gogel, Attorney

I began my professional life in politics. While attending George Washington University in Washington, D.C. I was offered an internship in the U.S. House of Representatives. During the internship I worked on a variety of legislative issues including legislation concerning problems related to interstate child custody.

Shortly before completing my undergraduate studies in political science, I obtained a job as a legislative assistant at a firm that provided public relations and lobbying assistance to corporations in the entertainment and media fields. The firm’s clients included the Recording Industry Association and the Magazine Publishers Association. While I was working at the firm assisting in legislative issues related to lobbying efforts, the firm was involved in updating the White House record collection which at that time meant collecting and delivering vinyl records to the White House.

I obtained my Master’s Degree in legislation from G.W.U. while I was working in Washington, D.C. I had several occasions to interact with our firm’s legal counsel and I began to develop an interest in the law. I enrolled in law school and moved to New England.

As I was completing my law school education I realized that my education in legislation had lead to an interest in areas of the law in which the law was codified in statutory as opposed to case law sources. I concentrated my courses in commercial law and bankruptcy.

When I was admitted to the Bar I focused my attention on bankruptcy law and litigation. Over the years I have handled hundreds of cases for consumers and businesses. My practice includes representing clients in Chapter 7 cases, consumer reorganizations under Chapter 13, and small business reorganizations under Chapter 11.

During the course of my consumer bankruptcy practice in the early 1990s I learned that several credit card companies where not properly treating agreements they received from consumers reaffirming debts. These agreements, called "Reaffirmation Agreements", must be filed with the bankruptcy court before money may be collected under the agreements. Because several bankruptcy judges began to disapprove these agreements, certain companies stopped filing the documents. These companies continued to collect payments under the agreements in violation of the Bankruptcy Code.

Since I had litigated many complex cases during my career, I decided to bring class action litigation against the companies I discovered were not filing the agreements. Over the next several years I was appointed national class action counsel by several courts and successful collected millions of dollars that were returned to consumers. The lead case against Moran Stanley was certified as a national class action in Springfield, MA and was settled after class certification. I was also involved as national class action counsel in a multi district litigation case against G.E. Capital which was settled in federal court in Chicago, IL.

After the bankruptcy reaffirmation cases, I worked on a case against Providian that was settled as a national class action in California. That case involved additional charges for products and services that were not ordered by consumers. As a result of these and other consumer cases I have been admitted to practice before courts in over a dozen states including courts in Philadelphia, Hartford, and Chicago.