Collier Lending Institutions and the Bankruptcy Code

James M. Lawniczak of Calfee, Halter & Griswold LLP in Cleveland, Ohio, has more than 30 years’ experience representing clients in complex corporate reorganizations and bankruptcy and creditors’ rights, as well as commercial business and finance matters. As head of Calfee’s Bankruptcy Litigation practice, he has a long history of representing financial institutions in bankruptcy proceedings, in particular chapter 11 proceedings.

Mr. Lawniczak’s work includes serving as debtors’ counsel in the successful reorganization of the Wheeling Pittsburgh Steel Corporation, a debtor that restructured hundreds of millions of dollars of debt in chapter 11. He also facilitated the section 363 sales of Fitness Quest, Inc., Republic Storage Systems Co. and Concord Steel Inc.; his guidance enabled them to achieve their goals of selling their businesses, while preserving critical assets and jobs.

Mr. Lawniczak has significant experience with cash collateral, debtor in possession financing, relief from the stay and presentation and confirmation of plans of reorganizations. He also represents other non-bank secured, as well as unsecured, creditors, debtors, liquidators, receivers, assignees and unsecured creditors’ committees in all aspects of corporate and insurance insolvency and workout proceedings, both post- and pre-filing. Jim’s practice also includes working with domestic and international clients on transactional matters in the commercial business and finance arena.

He has long been a contributing author to Collier on Bankruptcy and writes bankruptcy and other chapters for LexisNexis’s Business Organizations with Tax Planning, Asset Based Financing, Debtor-Creditor Law and Franchising treatises. He also has published multiple articles in professional and legal journals and frequently lectures on bankruptcy and commercial finance issues at professional seminars and conferences.

He is a 1977 magna cum laude graduate of the University of Michigan Law School, and was law clerk for the Honorable Robert E. DeMascio, United States District Judge, at the time when the judge was chairman of the Judicial Conference Committee on Bankruptcy.