The Legal 500

Cooley Godward Kronish LLP

PRACTICE: Cooley Godward Kronish LLP’s New York bankruptcy and restructuring practice ‘provides excellent service, not only from the partners. The work of the more junior lawyers is also of a consistently high quality’. The practice is wide-ranging, and offers advice to debtors, creditors, investors, employees and retired employees in all types of distressed situation. Lawyers advise clients purchasing assets from bankruptcies and troubled or insolvent companies. Clients note that the practice has ‘extensive experience in bankruptcy generally and more specifically in the retail sector’. That retail expertise generates instructions across the US.

In a recent instruction the practice acted as counsel for the official committee of unsecured creditors in the Chapter 11 reorganization of Steve & Barry’s, a clothing retailer with several brand names which operated 276 stores in 39 states at the time of filing in July 2008. A going concern sale was achieved. Satisfactory resolutions have been structured in many similar instances including the Lillian Vernon direct-mail and online retailer; and Mervyn’s Holdings, the South West-based store chain.

CLIENTS: Creditors’ committees have been represented in Athlete’s Foot, Long John Silver’s Restaurants and Levitz Home Furnishings. Employee and retiree committees advised include United Airlines ESOP Committee and Enron Employees Related Issues Committee.

INDIVIDUALS: Larry Gottlieb, the practice chair, is ‘very knowledgeable and knows when to be tough and when to be conciliatory when dealing with other parties’. Jay Indyke ‘knows the legal and business aspects of the deals and is an aggressive negotiator and advocate’. Both practice from the New York office.

Dechert LLP

PRACTICE: Dechert LLP’s bankruptcy practice of some 30 lawyers is represented in the New York, Philadelphia and Hartford offices. The practice has expanded recently with several lateral hires, including Shmuel Vasser from Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP in June 2008, and Michael Sage, formerly a partner at O’Melveny & Myers LLP, in December 2008. Both joined the New York office. The practice has a broad range of experience with particular strength in the New York banking and financial services industry and a strong following of bondholders and investors.

Current assignments include representation of the outside directors of Lehman Brothers, in connection with Lehman’s Chapter 11 series of bankruptcies. The practice is also advising various hedge funds and other financial institutions in connection with exposure to various Lehman entities’ unsettled trades, prime broker agreements and other matters.

The Senior Lender Group of APW Limited is being represented in respect of secured debt of approximately $100m. The complex assignment requires an analysis of the insolvency legislation in six jurisdictions prior to a selection of the appropriate manner of resolution. The practice also negotiated the successful restructuring of NCS Healthcare, an insolvent public company, paying creditors in full and preserving value for the equity holders.

CLIENTS: Clients include Plainfield Specialty Holdings, Merrill Lynch, Green Bull Loan Acquisition, ProRhythm and Verse Capital Management.

INDIVIDUALS: Jeffrey Schwartz, co-chair of the practice, is a veteran of numerous major bankruptcies. Shmuel Vasser ‘has the intelligent persuasion, cool-head and business savvy that has made him indispensable to us’. Both are based in New York.

Reed Smith LLP

PRACTICE: Reed Smith LLP expanded its East Coast commercial restructuring and bankruptcy practice in early 2008 when several lawyers from Anderson Kill & Olick, P.C. joined the New York office. It now comprises 12 partners in New York, six in Philadelphia and two in Wilmington, Delaware. The practice attracts a high volume of instructions and, revealing its roots in Pittsburgh, is known for expertise in the steel industry, as well as in wider business sectors such as healthcare, transportation, retail and telecoms. The creditor-side-biased practice represents a large number of institutional clients including banks and secured lenders, creditor committees and private equity and hedge funds. The New York practice has developed expertise in complex financial instruments, as demonstrated by a recent instruction on behalf of the European bank in connection with a substantial claim arising from an investment in a Collateralized Debt Obligation (CDO). The proceedings were settled before the court hearing.

CLIENTS: The practice represented senior creditors in the restructuring of KKR Atlantic & Pacific and is advising the Cayman Islands liquidators of the Bear Stearns sub-prime CDO hedge funds. Other clients include Coho Energy, Beckett Healthcare and Alamo Rent-A-Car.

INDIVIDUALS: Jeffrey Glatzer is an experienced litigator with considerable expertise in the financial sector; his clients include numerous banks and financial institutions. Andrew Rahl, practice co-leader, specializes in instructions involving derivatives and other complex financial instruments. Both practice out of the New York office.

Schulte Roth & Zabel LLP

PRACTICE: Schulte Roth & Zabel LLP’s 18-strong bankruptcy and business reorganization practice is commended for providing ‘superb work, responsive client service and, for New York, reasonable billing’. It represents investment funds, banks and other creditors, as well as working with the purchasers of troubled companies’ assets. One client notes ‘ Schulte Roth & Zabel LLP ranks at the very top of the major law firms in the US and Europe, and I have worked with almost all of them’.

In March 2009, the practice represented Clarion Capital Partners and a group of other secured lenders in the bankruptcy auction acquisition of all the assets of dinnerware company Lenox Group, a deal valued at $100m. In a high-profile and long-running asbestos reorganization case, the practice represented Quigley, the debtor company in a Chapter 11 protection, and succeeded in having the claim of one of the major asbestos liability insurers reduced to nothing, thereby precluding its participation in any distribution to creditors. The Bankruptcy Court ruled in July 2008.

CLIENTS: Committee representations include Carolina Steel and Rockefeller Centre Properties. The practice has also represented debtor companies such as Audio Visual Services and Unipix Entertainment.

INDIVIDUALS: Michael Cook is ‘one of the true academics in the field - encyclopedic knowledge, and always current on new thinking’; while Adam Harris is ‘a good lawyer and a great businessman - an invaluable resource and our partner in decision-making’. Lawrence Gelber is also rated extremely highly by clients and is ‘a pleasure to work with’. All practice in New York.

Stroock & Stroock & Lavan LLP

PRACTICE: Stroock & Stroock & Lavan LLP’s restructuring practice is based in New York and has established a strong reputation for the representation of bondholders groups. It has played a major role in numerous debt-for-equity exchanges which allow bondholders to take control of distressed debtors. This niche work should not conceal a very broad and expert practice in which clients note that ‘the quality of work from the team was excellent’. It has dealt with complex insolvency in most industries, generally from the creditor side but also in assisting purchasers acquiring assets from financially distressed companies. The practice continues to build its strength through lateral hires. In March 2009, former White & Case LLP partner Andrew DeNatale joined the New York office to head the Special Situations Lending Group.

Practice members also have substantial experience in restructuring companies faced with asbestos-related and product liability litigation. Representations have included the official committees of unsecured creditors in both the WR Grace and Co and United States Gypsum Chapter 11 bankruptcies.

CLIENTS: Clients include AIG, Alliance Capital, and Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch and Seneca Capital Investments.

INDIVIDUALS: Lawrence Handelsman ‘managed an extremely complicated and often contentious bankruptcy very well and creditors got an excellent recovery’. Kenneth Pasquale is ‘smart, pragmatic and even-keeled - he came late into a case that was going south and got the ship righted’. Lewis Kruger is ‘a deeply experienced éminence grise and a great counselor’. All are based in New York.

Goodwin Procter LLP

PRACTICE: Goodwin Procter LLP’s financial restructuring practice saw two promotions to partner in the New York office in October 2008, taking the total to six partners, a little larger than the four-partner Boston offering. The practice is particularly expert in the representation of distressed investors; the litigation side of the practice is also well developed. Members of the practice have acted as lead counsel to the bondholders committees in some major restructurings including Northwest Airlines. In Chapter 11 cases, the practice has served as lead counsel to GT Brands and Chilton-Globe.

CLIENTS: Practice members have served as lead counsel in Chapter 11 plans for GT Brands, General Cinema and MHI Shipbuilding.

INDIVIDUALS: In New York, practice co-chair Allan Brilliant is particularly expert in the representation of bank groups and creditors committees. In Boston, Daniel Glosband has acted as an adviser to the US State Department on international insolvency.

Kelley Drye & Warren LLP

PRACTICE: Kelley Drye & Warren LLP’s three-partner practice, with the same number of counsel and nine associates, acts for a large number of top financial institutions and major corporations. Deals handled by the practice include multi-billion-dollar mandates every year. Clients comment that service quality is ‘thorough and rigorous’.

The practice is representing BP’s North American companies in the Delaware Chapter 11 of SemCrude. The ongoing assignment involves complex financial instruments including swap agreements and other derivative contracts to an estimated value of $300m. In an unsecured creditor representation, which concluded in May 2008 after four years challenging work, a plan of liquidation in the Verestar bankruptcy was confirmed which provided for a distribution of almost 50% on the dollar.

CLIENTS: Clients include Verestar, US Bank Bombardier Aerospace, Readers Digest and Toray Industries.

INDIVIDUALS: James Carr, the practice chair, has a particular expertise in creditor representations for companies in the energy, chemical, retail and airline sectors, and is leading the BP instruction mentioned. Eric Wilson ‘goes the extra mile to provide insights beyond simply answering the questions asked’ and has considerable experience representing insurers, banks and other financial institutions.

Kasowitz, Benson, Torres & Friedman LLP

PRACTICE: Kasowitz, Benson, Torres & Friedman LLP’s creditors rights and bankruptcy group, as well as representing the major interested parties in some of the largest national bankruptcies and restructurings, also represents hedge funds and other investors seeking to invest in distressed assets. The eight-partner practice has a reputation for determined litigation.

The practice represented the Ad Hoc Committee of Equity Security Holders in the high-profile Northwest Airlines bankruptcy.

CLIENTS: The practice has advised creditors in numerous restructurings and Chapter 11 proceedings including Enron, WorldCom, Parmalat and FoxMeyer.

INDIVIDUALS: David Friedman heads the practice. He is admitted to the US Supreme Court and has a deserved reputation as an expert litigator on behalf of creditors and investors. Michael Harwood is recommended for litigation in bankruptcy, particularly where there are elements of fraud or breach of fiduciary duty. Both are based in New York.

Kaye Scholer LLP

PRACTICE: Kaye Scholer LLP’s New York-based practice has 12 partners whose skills range from creditor representation to cross-border insolvency. It has established a reputation for competence which attracts large and complex instructions. During 2008, the practice represented JHT Holdings and its affiliates in a Chapter 11 filing. The company, the leading transporter of commercial trucks in North America, was successfully restructured in October 2008, only four months after declaring for protection, following complex and sometimes contentious negotiations with all interested parties.

CLIENTS: Debtor corporations represented in Chapter 11 cases include Insight Imaging, Spinnaker Industries and Nutritional Sourcing Corporation.

INDIVIDUALS: Scott Talmadge in New York is recommended for complex instructions including those with a cross-border element.

Hughes Hubbard & Reed LLP

PRACTICE: Hughes Hubbard & Reed LLP’s corporate reorganization and bankruptcy practice grew to six New York partners and two Washington DC partners following the acquisition of boutique creditors rights firm Luskin Stern & Eisler in September 2008.

In a key appointment the co-chair of the practice, James Giddens, was appointed as counsel to the trustee of Lehman Brothers in one of the largest most complex securities broker-dealer liquidations in history.

CLIENTS: The practice has represented creditors in the proceedings for Enron, Calpine, PG&E National Energy Group, Mirant, Delta Airlines and New Century Capita.

INDIVIDUALS: James Giddens in New York, the practice co-chair, is recommended for instructions of the highest complexity; he was nominated by the Securities Investor Protection Corporation to act in the Lehman Brothers instruction.

Otterbourg, Steindler, Houston & Rosen, P.C.

PRACTICE: Otterbourg, Steindler, Houston & Rosen, P.C.’s practice is a small one but has an established reputation for creditor support. Despite maintaining a fairly low profile, the practice attracts a steady flow of high-value Chapter 11 and Chapter 7 instructions.

The practice was appointed to represent the committee of unsecured creditors in the Journal Register Chapter 11 in early 2009. The regional newspaper publisher’s reorganization is being opposed by the creditors who perceive the scheduled exit from bankruptcy as aggressive.

CLIENTS: The practice has represented interested parties in bankruptcies including US Airways, Kmart and Northwest Airlines.

INDIVIDUALS: Scott Hazan is recommended for his robust pursuit of creditors’ interests.

Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton LLP

PRACTICE: Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton LLP’s East Coast bankruptcy practice partner complement doubled to four during 2008 when two Heller Ehrman partners joined the New York office. Members have acted in numerous multi-billion-dollar bankruptcies and have particular expertise in default administration for corporate trustees.

The practice is representing the Bank of New York Mellon Trust and Norton Gold Fields in Lehman Brothers’ Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

CLIENTS: Clients include Goldman Sachs, Marathon Oil and Singapore Airlines.

INDIVIDUALS: Dividing his time between New York and Shanghai, Edward Tillinghast is recommended for cross-border restructuring.