Overview

For more than 40 years, Pullman & Comley's Bankruptcy, Creditors’ Rights and Financial Restructuring practice has had a major presence in bankruptcy cases in the District of Connecticut and cases in New York and other jurisdictions. The attorneys in our practice group have regularly represented secured and unsecured creditors, creditors’ committees, commercial landlords, businesses and individual debtors reorganizing under chapter 11, creditors in dischargeability litigation, equity holders, trustees in avoidance and other estate recovery actions, asset purchasers and other interested parties in bankruptcy proceedings, debt workouts and restructurings.

Our workout, bankruptcy and creditors’ rights team also has significant experience representing secured creditors outside of bankruptcy court.  We have represented a wide array of lenders, including credit unions, community banks, regional banks, national banks and hedge funds in connection with forbearance agreements and deed-in-lieu of foreclosure agreements concerning office, retail, industrial and hotel properties.  We have advised lenders regarding their options upon a borrower’s default and successfully navigated challenging workout agreements.

When out-of-court workouts cannot be achieved, and litigation is unavoidable, our team has represented numerous lenders and financial institutions in complex, multimillion dollar foreclosure actions of commercial property in both state and federal court.  Our foreclosure expertise includes obtaining the appointment of rent receivers and, in one case, the award of a foreclosure judgment in excess of $15 million.

In addition, our creditors’ rights attorneys have tremendous depth and experience litigating all aspects of debtor-creditor relationships.  They have been involved in scores of significant collection actions brought on behalf of financial institutions and defended dozens of lender liability actions asserting various claims raised by their borrowers.  When bringing collections actions, our creditors’ rights attorneys frequently seek, and obtain, prejudgment remedy attachments of the defendants’ assets to preserve and ensure ultimate collection of the debt. 

Our workout, bankruptcy and creditors’ rights attorneys are prominent leaders in the law.  The chair of our practice group, Irve Goldman, was one of the first attorneys in Connecticut to have become certified as a Business Bankruptcy specialist by the Am. Board of Certification (1993) and has been recognized by The Best Lawyers in America as a lawyer of the year in the Stamford region for the past two years in Litigation – Bankruptcy (2023) and Bankruptcy and Creditor Debtor Rights and Insolvency and Reorganization Law (2022). Kristin Mayhew  is currently the Chair of the Commercial Law and Bankruptcy section of the Connecticut Bar, as well as past President and Chair of the Connecticut Turnaround Management Association. And Jonathan Kaplan serves on the Executive Committee of the Connecticut Bar Association’s Commercial Law and Bankruptcy Section. Within the group,  our attorneys have more than 60  years’ experience in representing virtually every type of constituent that has had interests to protect in a chapter 11 or chapter 7 case.  

Our practice includes:

  • Representing secured creditors, creditors’ committees and unsecured creditors in chapter 11 cases, as well as businesses and individuals reorganizing under chapter 11
  • Representing trustees in pursuing avoidance and other litigation recoveries in bankruptcy cases
  • Representing creditors in obtaining the nondischargeability of their debts or denial of discharge in individual bankruptcy cases
  • Health care insolvencies, including representing nursing homes in chapter 11 and the chapter 11 trustee of a nursing home
  • Defending institutions of higher education in "tuition clawback" litigation
  • Troubled company restructurings and liquidations
  • Bankruptcy litigation of all types, including prosecution and defense of fraudulent transfer and preference avoidance litigation and nondischargeability of debt cases
  • Distressed acquisitions and asset sales
  • Real estate restructuring
  • Loan workouts
  • State and federal commercial foreclosures
  • Defense of lender liability claims
  • Commercial collection actions in state and federal court

For more information on our specific experience, visit the Bankruptcy and Creditors' Rights practice page and  Workouts and Financial Restructuring.

News & Insights

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Case Studies

  • Represented Five States in Challenging Purdue Pharma's Chapter 11 Plan
    2021

    In December 2021, a New York federal district judge overturned the confirmation of Purdue Pharma’s Chapter 11 plan, finding that legal releases that would shield members of the Sackler family from civil opioid lawsuits are not permitted under the Bankruptcy Code. In their appeal to the District Court, our bankruptcy lawyers represented the states of Connecticut, Delaware, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington, in conjunction with certain of the Solicitors General and Assistant Attorneys General in the respective appealing states and the law firm of Kleinberg Kaplan Wolff & Cohen PC.

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