Bankruptcy & Creditors' Rights

Practice Overview

All aspects of representation in bankruptcy cases including: secured and unsecured creditors, debtors, creditors committees, parties interested in purchasing assets from bankruptcy estates, bankruptcy trustees, restructuring professionals, creditors committees, Section 1114 retiree committees, and tort creditor committees.

In particular, our firm has developed considerable expertise in bankruptcy litigation with respect to claims determinations, removal of cases pending in other courts, director and officer insurance litigation, environmental claims and insurance litigation, fraudulent conveyance, preference cases, and other avoidance litigation.

Finally, our firm emphasizes its ability to assist and protect in pre-bankruptcy debtor-creditor matters including restructuring and workouts, receiverships, pre-judgment attachments, foreclosures, UCC sales, asset sales, prepackaged Chapter 11 reorganizations, assignments and collections, and liquidations.

Scope of Service

Industries in which we have undertaken recent representations include:

• Agriculture and cooperatives
• Airlines - lessors, creditors and 1114 retiree committees
• Automobile and common carrier
• Construction and bonding
• Environmentally contaminated real estate
• Equipment financing and leasing
• Food & beverage (manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers)
• Golf courses and related businesses
• Health care and pharmaceutical research
• Homebuilders
• Hospital sales and liquidations
• Hotels and resorts - operation and development
• Hospitality and gaming
• Insurance, director and officer liability
• Manufacturing
• Medical equipment leasing
• Movie exhibition and leaseholds
• Oil and gas
• Real estate (apartments, developers, speculators, large tract)
• Recreational vehicles
• Restaurants
• Restructuring of businesses
• Retail sales (all aspects - food, automotive components, computer hardware and software)
• Technology
• Telecommunications
• Tort Plaintiffs' Committee in Catholic Diocese Chapter 11 cases

Of Note

We represent MCI Telecommunications Corp. and related entities in pursuing claims objections in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York. We represent Interstate Bakeries Corporation and eight affiliated in their pending bankruptcy cases in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Western District of Missouri. We represent the Tort Claimants Committee in the Chapter 11 case filed by the Catholic Diocese of Tucson. We represent Remediation Financial, Inc. as Chapter 11 debtor's counsel, and we represented Crown Pacific in its Chapter 11 reorganization, both in the District of Arizona. We also represented the TWA Inc. Post-Confirmation Estate in pursuing preference actions and claims objections in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware. In 2005, we represented Arkansas Electric Cooperative Corporation in its acquisition of a 3.5 MW power plant from Mirant Corporation in its pending bankruptcy case in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Texas.

We have successfully represented secured creditors and bank groups in telecommunications, real estate, agriculture, manufacturing and auto industry bankruptcy cases. We have represented numerous committees of unsecured creditors including (i) in the liquidation of a large agricultural cooperative that paid unsecured creditors in full, with interest, (ii) a well known food processing company with substantial union disputes, and (iii) retail. We have successfully reorganized several thousand units of HUD and public-bond financed multifamily residential real estate and a regional movie theatre organization. We regularly represent telecommunications carriers in national telecommunications bankruptcy cases throughout the country; and we have acted as, and represented, trustees in several significant Chapter 7 and 11 cases on both the East and West Coast. We have successfully restructured entirely out of court a major beer manufacturer and distributor.