Holland & Hart LLP

Holland & Hart's Bankruptcy and Creditors' Rights Practice Group is a leader in bankruptcy, insolvency, restructuring, and creditors' rights throughout the Mountain West and has been recognized by Best Lawyers in America, The Legal 500 United States, and Chambers USA.

Our bankruptcy and creditors' rights practice is broader than the name implies, encompassing virtually everything that may flow from financial distress faced by our clients or those they deal with. It is a unique area of practice, requiring in-depth knowledge of the law, an understanding of how that law fits into the broader legal and commercial framework, and a full range of both transactional and litigation skills. Our lawyers are particularly effective because we have the experience necessary to bring this combination of skills to bear on virtually any legal problem.

Our clients' goals are our goals. We stand ready to apply our skills, relationships, and experience to get the results our clients need, as quickly and economically as possible.

Our Biggest Strength is Our People
Our bankruptcy lawyers know more than just the law. We are well-established and well-connected members of the legal communities in which we practice. We know and are known by the judges and our counterparts in other law firms. We are justly proud of our reputation for both our legal skills and our integrity. Above all, we get things done.

Among our lawyers are a former chair of the Bankruptcy Section of the Idaho Bar Association and two former chairs of the Bankruptcy Section of the Colorado Bar Association. Four of our lawyers have been elected fellows of the prestigious American College of Bankruptcy. Our ranks include a contributor to Advanced Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Practice, the leading treatise on reorganization practice, and a member of the Board of Editors and frequent author for The Bankruptcy Strategist, a long-standing monthly national publication of articles by leading bankruptcy lawyers from around the country.

Our members are also active in the American Bankruptcy Institute and the American Bar Association's Business Bankruptcy Committee. One of our lawyers has chaired ABI's annual Rocky Mountain Bankruptcy Conference for the last several years. We have written many articles for both national and regional publications and have made countless presentations at conferences and seminars.

Comprehensive Experience
We have extensive experience in virtually all phases of bankruptcy and insolvency. Among the many things we do is bankruptcy litigation, including avoidance actions, stay relief, adequate protection, plan confirmation, dischargeability, dismissal/conversion, and claim disputes, as well as contract and commercial litigation in the bankruptcy context. We call on the firm's commercial litigators for assistance whenever that allows us to most effectively represent our clients.

We have represented a number of buyers, as well as sellers, in major asset sales by Chapter 11 debtors and have a great deal of experience with bid procedures and competitive bidding scenarios. We are well prepared to help our clients benefit from the unique opportunities to acquire assets in bankruptcy cases.

We frequently counsel our creditor and debtor clients, often long before bankruptcy, to structure transactions to best survive bankruptcy, to exercise rights and remedies most effectively before or during bankruptcy, and to plan for the eventualities of bankruptcy. We work closely with the firm's transactional and litigation lawyers to ease the burdens of bankruptcy on our clients.

We have extensive experience representing all of the major constituencies in bankruptcies, including secured and unsecured creditors, creditors' committees, trustees, asset purchasers, avoidance action defendants, and debtors. We know the bankruptcy system, with all of its subtleties and peculiarities, and we know how to navigate through the process to accomplish our client's goals and resolve difficult issues.

• Buying distressed companies or their assets
• Bankruptcy court litigation, including preference and fraudulent transfer litigation
• Counseling of both creditors and debtors
• Negotiations and workouts, for both creditors and debtors
• Creditor representation, both in and outside of bankruptcy
• Representation of creditors' committees and committee members
• Formulation and litigation of Chapter 11 plans
• Debtor representation, including reorganizations under Chapters 9 and 11
• Representation of receivers and lenders in state and federal court receiverships
• Trustee representation
• Representation of vendors and suppliers
• Lien disputes
• Administrative claim disputes
• Franchisor/franchisee disputes
• Contractor/subcontractor/developer disputes
• Landlord/tenant disputes
• Tax planning and advice in workouts and bankruptcy
• Chapter 9 municipal bankruptcies

With the collective talents of the lawyers throughout our regional offices, we have the experience to handle virtually any bankruptcy or restructuring issue.

We Know More than Just Bankruptcy
Our industry experience includes almost every conceivable type of business, both in the region and nationally, including real estate, oil and gas, mining, manufacturing, airlines, computer hardware and software, e-business, telecommunications, agriculture, securities, construction, commercial equipment, healthcare, food service, hotels, insurance, trucking, retail, broadcasting, public utilities, ski areas, and many, many others. Our clients are financial institutions, commercial lenders, landlords, equipment lessors, trade suppliers, asset purchasers, franchisors, and a variety of others whose interests are affected by bankruptcy or insolvency.

Added to the skill and experience of our bankruptcy and creditors' rights lawyers are the tremendous resources of a full service law firm, including the transactional and substantive knowledge so often required in bankruptcy, receiverships, or other insolvency proceedings. Our lawyers regularly team with other attorneys within the firm to make the deals and resolve the disputes that are so much a part of bankruptcy practice. Virtually any experience that may be required to get the job done is available from our skilled colleagues.

Holland & Hart's Statement of Commitment to Diversity
We are proud of our tradition of fostering and maintaining a work environment in which the diversity of each individual is valued and celebrated. We believe that the contributions of each individual are essential to our continued growth and to our ultimate goal of providing excellent quality legal services to our clients, with greater creativity and innovation. We are committed to taking full advantage of the rich backgrounds and abilities of our people and to promoting a greater diversity whenever and wherever possible.

Diversity Pledge
Holland & Hart is committed to promoting diversity by:

• Making every possible effort to recruit, hire, retain, and promote diverse persons at all levels of employment.
• Promoting greater sensitivity to the value of racial, ethnic and other forms of diversity, through diversity and sensitivity coaching or training for law firm members.
• Inviting to partnership diverse attorneys who meet the requisite criteria.

Diversity Initiatives
The following are additional examples of our commitment and efforts toward supporting and achieving diversity:

• We make a conscious effort to ensure that women and diverse attorneys are included as voting members of our committees of importance within the firm.
• We work closely with law school deans and placement directors in an effort to identify women and diverse law students who are interested in working at Holland & Hart.
• Holland & Hart offers medical and other benefits to partners of gay and lesbian employees on the same terms as it does to spouses of employees.
• We created an Indian Law Practice Group and actively recruited Native American law students and lateral hires.
• Each year we contribute to such scholarship funds as the Colorado Native American Indian Scholarship Fund, the Sam Cary Scholarship Endowment Fund, the Colorado Asian American Bar Scholarship Fund, the Colorado Hispanic Bar Scholarship Fund, and the Colorado Women's Bar Association Scholarship Fund.
• In partnership with the University of Idaho School of Law, we sponsor a "Law by Day, Jazz by Night" each year for undergraduate minority students who have an interest in law.
• We took a leadership role in organizing and supporting the Colorado Pledge Group's Minority First Year Law Student Summer Clerk Program. Through this program, law firms agreed to add at least one diverse first year law student to their summer clerk program.
• We were involved in the creation of the Cross-Professional Business Networking Group, where diverse attorneys in our community can meet and network with non-attorney professionals of color. We view this as a way to help diverse attorneys increase their business development possibilities.

For more information regarding Holland & Hart's commitment to diversity, please contact Peter Houtsma at (303) 295-8259.