
William P. Harbison
Position: Partner | Attorney at Law
Co-Chair of Bankruptcy and Financial Restructuring Group
Louisville, Kentucky
502-560-6720
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Bill Harbison practices in the firm’s Bankruptcy and Financial Restructuring Group, working with lenders, trustees, receivers, and investors on collection and insolvency issues in Indiana’s and Kentucky’s federal and state courts. At home in the courtroom, Bill has extensive experience litigating under the Bankruptcy Code and the Uniform Commercial Code and has tried facts to courts and juries in dozens of cases. Before joining MPM, Bill spent a decade representing businesses and their owners as debtors in cases under chapters 7, 11, 12, and 13 of the Bankruptcy Code.
Before entering private practice, Bill served as a deputy prosecuting attorney in Clark County, Indiana, and as a law clerk to the Honorable Basil H. Lorch III of the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Indiana. A seventh-generation Hoosier, Bill lives in New Albany with his wife and daughter on part of the quarter-section his family bought in the 1830s. Bill splits his time between the firm’s Louisville and New Albany offices and cycles to work whenever he can.
Areas of Practice
Banking and Finance Law
Business Law & Litigation
Bar Admissions
Indiana
Kentucky
Education
Indiana University Maurer School of Law, JD, cum laude
Ball State University Honors College, BA, cum laude
Education
- J.D., University of Maryland School of Law, 2008
- B.A., The College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, VA, High Honors, 2003
Community Involvement
- Best Lawyers in America®, Bankruptcy and Creditor Debtor Rights/Insolvency and Reorganization Law, 2025-present
- Louisville Forum, President, 2021-2022, Board of Directors, 2017-present
- Shively Area Ministries, Chair of the Board of Directors, 2021-present
- Louisville Chapter of Credit Abuse Resistance Education (CARE), Leadership Team, 2018-present
- Kentucky Bar Association, 2015–present
- Kentucky League of Cities, 2018-2022
- Municipal Attorneys Association of Kentucky, 2018-2022
- Volunteer Judge, Regional Intercollegiate Mock Trial Qualifying Tournament Hosted by Bellarmine University, 2015–2020
- Volunteer Judge, University of Louisville Brandeis School of Law Oral Advocacy Competition, 2017
Honors and Awards
- Appointed Associate Editor of the American Bankruptcy Institute Journal, 2018-present
- Louisville Bar Association's Bankruptcy Section Chair, 2017-2018
- Louisville Business First 20 People to Know in the Law, 2017
- Leadership Louisville, 2016
- Thorny Issues in Consumer Cases, book chapter, Am. Bankr. Inst. (Dec. 2020)
- What’s the Matter with Delaware? An Analysis of the Bankruptcy Venue Reform Act of 2018, Louisville Bar Briefs (2018)
- Midland Funding v. Johnson: Pitting the Bankruptcy Code against the FDCPA?, Louisville Bar Briefs (2017)
- The Debtor’s Dissent: A Brief Review of Justice Scalia’s Bankruptcy Opinions, Louisville Bar Briefs (2016)
- Congress: Resolve Split on Ch. 7 Substantial Contribution Claims, 35-4 ABIJ 20 (2016)
- Does Credit that Diminishes the Estate Qualify as New Value?, 34-7 ABIJ 16 (2015)
- The Medical Bankruptcy Fairness Act of 2014: Cure or Misdiagnosis?, Am. Bankr. Inst. Legis. Comm. (2014)
- Bankruptcy or Bailout? Senators Seek to Replace Title II of Dodd–Frank with a New Bankruptcy Chapter 14, Am. Bankr. Inst. Legis. Comm. (2014)
- Early–Intervention Contacts and the Automatic Stay: CFPB Reconciles Conflict Between RESPA Rule and the Bankruptcy Code, Am. Bankr. Inst. Legis. Comm. (2014)
- The Protecting Employees & Retirees in Municipal Bankruptcies Act, Am. Bankr. Inst. Legis. Comm. (2014)
- Republican Revolutionaries and Tea Party Patriots: A Public Choice Analysis of Congressional Term Limits, 86 St. John’s L. Rev. 761 (2012) (available at https://scholarship.law.stjohns.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=5561&context=lawreview)
- The Senate Hold: Preliminary Evidence from the Baker Years (with Congressman Daniel Lipinski and Dr. C. Lawrence Evans, cited in Walter J. Oleszek, Congressional Procedures & the Policy Process (2004))
- The Evolving Role of the Chapter 7 and Subchapter V Bankruptcy Trustees During COVID and Beyond, American Bankruptcy Institute, Dec. 2020
- Business Planning During and After the Covid-19 Crisis, Argent Trust Company, Jun. 2020
- Understanding the Nuts and Bolts of the “New” Subchapter V Small Business Chapter 11, American Bankruptcy Institute, May 2020
- Advanced Bankruptcy Discharge Issues, Kentucky Legal Aid, Sep. 2019
- The Intersection of Bankruptcy and the FDCPA: the CFPB’s Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, American Bankruptcy Institute, Jul. 2019
- Bankruptcy Venue Reform: Will it happen? Should it happen?, Louisville Bar Association, Aug. 2018
- Section 1111(b) and Credit Bidding Issues, Barbara A. Everly Advanced Procedures Bankruptcy Seminar, Jul. 2014
- Bankruptcy: A Creditor’s Perspective, National Business Institute, Dec. 2014
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About Bill

William P. Harbison
Position: Partner
Louisville, Kentucky502-560-6720
Email Bill Harbison
View all Attorneys


