Bankruptcy and Creditors' Rights

Attorneys in our nationally recognized bankruptcy and creditors' rights practice appear regularly before the Bankruptcy Courts in Delaware, New York, Connecticut, New Jersey, Massachusetts and throughout the United States to ensure that the rights of our clients are vigorously protected. Our attorneys actively participate in the country's major insolvency and commercial finance organizations and are respected lecturers; several have been designated Masters of the Bankruptcy Inn of Court and Best Lawyers in America.

Our practice involves the representation of a wide range of regional, national and international clients, including financial institutions, equipment lessors and finance companies, commercial landlords and real estate developers, major retailers and manufacturers, and insurance companies. Our attorneys also represent official creditors' committees, acquirers of assets and bankruptcy trustees. The service of this practice is often enhanced through collaboration with other disciplines within the firm and through outside turnaround and financial advisory firms.

Our clients rely upon us to assist them in all aspects of restructuring, bankruptcy, and creditors' rights, helping them to resolve complex financial and commercial problems, enforce their rights as secured lenders and major unsecured creditors, and reach non-traditional solutions. The group's lawyers have represented clients in numerous out-of-court restructurings, as well as in complex cases under Chapters 7, 9, 11, 12, 13 and 15 of the Bankruptcy Code. Our risk management skills, strategic execution, and business acumen enable efficient resolutions of a wide spectrum of bankruptcy, creditors' rights and restructuring matters.

The group's practice focuses on all facets of bankruptcy and creditors' rights and related commercial litigation, including:

• Pre-bankruptcy workouts and restructurings
• Debtor-in-possession financing and cash collateral orders
• Representation of Chapter 11 trustees and official unsecured creditors' committees
• Purchase and sale of distressed assets and debt, including Bankruptcy Code Section 363 sales
• Defense of lender liability claims
• Motions for relief from the automatic stay
• Equipment leasing and finance-related motion practice
• Enforcement of landlords' rights
• Settlements of derivative contracts
• Claims trading
• Bankruptcy appeals
• Structuring bankruptcy remote finance transactions, including cutting-edge securitizations and project finance transactions
• Bankruptcy litigation, including contested plan confirmations, collateral valuation proceedings, defense of lender liability claims, claims objections and avoidance actions

Workouts and Restructuring

Our workouts and restructuring practice serves the needs of secured and unsecured creditors, investors and purchasers. Drawing on the combined experience of lawyers in our finance, bankruptcy and business law practices, our attorneys are regularly involved in national and regional workouts and restructurings and have extensive experience in handling:

• Out-of-court workouts and forbearance arrangements across all business sectors, including airlines, retail, manufacturing, energy, and utilities
• Workouts and restructures of real estate matters involving office buildings, shopping centers, hotels, conference centers, apartment complexes, marinas and other special uses
• Workouts and restructures involving non-performing and underperforming structured financings and securitizations of commercial mortgage loans, franchisee loans, trade receivables, automobile loans, home equity loans, medical receivables, credit card receivables, utility stranded costs and numerous other financial assets
• Loan documentation and collateral review and enhancements
• State and federal court litigation, including replevin actions, receiverships and foreclosures
• Distressed debt sales and acquisitions

This practice team brings to bear the full scope of the firm's many legal resources to achieve successfully our clients' goals. We are also able to draw upon the experience of other firm attorneys who concentrate in areas such as litigation, intellectual property, health care, technology, tax, securities, real estate, labor and environmental law. We have a reputation for representing our clients not only successfully but also cost-effectively. Our practice is characterized by a proactive approach that emphasizes consensus-building where possible and strong and aggressive litigation where necessary.

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