The Cost of Going Broke: John Melko on the Billion-Dollar Business of Bankruptcy

The year was 1978. A new bankruptcy code hit the books, and suddenly, the playbook for American business failure was rewritten. 47 years later, we're still living in its shadow. John Melko is a seasoned restructuring attorney and partner of Foley & Lardner and has watched bankruptcy courts evolve from its reformist roots to the high stakes, high cost beast it is today. In this episode, John helps us unpack the rise of Chapter 11, the potential fall, the industries it has failed, and the billion dollar burn rate it now takes just to go broke. This isn't theory; it's the hard truth behind corporate collapse.