Abstract: After the amendment became effective, bankruptcy judges could only authorize bonuses for senior managers if they were linked to specific performance goals, such as increasing revenue or moving the firm through the bankruptcy process. [...]key employee incentive plans (KEIPs) became an important part of the chapter 11 landscape, displacing the earlier era of KERPs. [...]the institutions of bankruptcy law have struggled to administer the law. For each of these cases, the author, along with a team of research assistants, examined all of the significant pleadings filed in the case, with special attention to the pleadings discussing bonus plans, as well as the firm's financial statements and subsequent filings in the bankruptcy case and with the Securities and Exchange Commission to determine whether the bonus goals were achieved. In a regression analysis in the Ellias article, the author controls for some observable aspects of each chapter 11 debtor - firm size, firm industry and the law firm advising the debtor - and still finds a negative association between the reform and the likelihood that a chapter 11 debtor would seek court permission to pay bonuses to senior managers during their time in bankruptcy. [...]when bonus plans were proposed, they were nearly always "incentive" plans tied to performance goals.