Back Pay precedence in Bankruptcy

The company I work for owes me about 100K in back-pay. I was verbally
promised a bonus a few years ago in this amount and was given a letter
acknowledging this obligation only eight months ago. It was described
as a past-bonus, not back-pay and does not mention any particular
period of time when it was earned.

The company has run out of money and is teetering on the verge of
bankruptcy. It owes back pay to other employees too - totalling 800K.
Additionally it owes about 150K to various vendors.

The worth of the assets of the company (software) is hard to estimate.
It could be anywhere between half a million to two million.

In the event that the company goes bankrupt, would I get my back-bonus?
Who would I have precedence over and who would I compete with? Would I
have precedence over investors (some hold preferred stock and some
common. They've invested 10 million to date.)? Would I have precedence
over vendors? How would money be divided up between employees? Would
the payout be in the ratio of amount owed? Since I'm owed a lot more
than any other individual employee, such a proportional scheme would
mean that I lose the most in absolute terms.

The company is located in Oregon but incorporated in Delaware. Would
Oregon law hold or Delaware or Federal?

The employees got an initial consultation from a lawyer and he said
that employees get priority over other creditors but only to the extent
of 10K. I have been unable to find a reference to this amount in the
Oregon law myself.
ORS 652.510 (
http://www.statelawyers.com/Statutes/Index.cfm/StateID:37/ID:69126 )
states that the priority is only for the first $2000. Beyond that would
employees be competing with vendors? With investors?

It gets worse:
ORS 652.500 (
http://www.statelawyers.com/Statutes/Index.cfm/StateID:37/ID:69125 )
seems to state that only the wages accrued up to six months before
bankruptcy would be paid. The letter acknowledging my bonus is eight
months old. What's the implication of this?

Federal law is a little different USC Title 11 Chapter 5 section
507(a)(3) (
http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode11/usc_sec_11_00000507----000-.html
)
allows $4k of wages as priority.

Delaware law probably doesn't apply here but it too only allows 2
months wages as priority
(http://www.delcode.state.de.us/title8/c001/sc11/index.htm ) section
300.

Now the management is in the process of accepting a secured loan in the
amount of 500K from one of the investors. The loan is secured against
all the assets of the company. Does this mean that once that money is
spent and the company goes bankrupt any proceeds from the sale of the
company's assets would be used first to pay off the secured loan?

I'm trying to understand as much of the relevant law as I can myself
before I approach a lawyer again.

Help!

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