Given the wide array of expertise required in bankruptcy and creditors’ rights matters, Shipman & Goodwin’s Bankruptcy and Creditors' Rights Team draws from both the firm’s transactional and business attorneys, as well as the firm’s commercial litigators. 

 

Our team represents a wide variety of clients, including secured and unsecured creditors, lenders, equipment lessors, special servicers, landlords, tenants, insurance companies, franchisors, health care businesses, state and local agencies, software companies, retailers, and suppliers. We have particular expertise in representing institutions that serve in trustee and agent roles in defaulted domestic and international project financings and debt offerings. 

 

We regularly represent our clients in bankruptcy cases throughout the United States. We have represented our clients in bankruptcy cases in more than thirty states, including in some of the nation’s busiest bankruptcy courts in California, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, New Jersey, and New York. We also represent our clients in civil litigation in state and federal court in Connecticut and many other jurisdictions, as well as in out of court workouts and restructurings. Our attorneys also advise parties in the context of bankruptcy involving contaminated real estate and environmental liabilities. 

 

 

Often a bankruptcy and creditors’ rights legal representation is performed outside of the courtroom. We regularly represent both lenders and borrowers in out-of-court restructurings and workouts. We also advise our clients concerning the impact of bankruptcy and insolvency laws in their day-to-day businesses and in particular, when a customer, supplier, counterparty or other business entity may be experiencing financial distress. 

 

When a bankruptcy occurs, we actively represent our clients in every aspect of these cases, including filing claims, serving on creditors’ committees, advising secured creditors and debtor-in-possession lenders, and negotiating plans of reorganization. In addition, as asset sales become a more important and prevalent aspect of Chapter 11 bankruptcy filings, we represent purchasers in connection with “Section 363 sales,” as well as other creditor constituencies affected by these sales. 

 

 

While the representation of our clients in these matters can sometimes be accomplished outside the courtroom, litigation is nonetheless often a necessary part of a bankruptcy or creditors’ rights representation. We regularly represent our clients in a diverse array of bankruptcy litigation matters. For example, we defend our clients against claims by debtors and trustees seeking to recover fraudulent or preferential transfers. We also defend objections to our clients’ claims in bankruptcy cases. In individual bankruptcy cases, we represent our clients in adversary proceedings objecting to the debtor’s ability to discharge his or her debts.  Finally, we are actively engaged on behalf of our clients in motion practice in the bankruptcy courts, such as seeking relief from the automatic stay, objecting to a debtor’s claimed exemptions, collateral valuation issues, and plan confirmation issues. 

 

 

One of our core values and objectives is to foster a diverse and inclusive workplace and to develop the outreach initiatives needed to ensure that such values and objectives are shared by everyone at our firm. Diversity, to us, means recognizing, accepting and including differences, such as race, gender, and sexual orientation. Our Strategic Plan recognizes that our continued success depends upon our ability to recruit, hire, train, mentor and retain excellent and diverse attorneys and staff. Maintaining an inclusive organization where all feel welcomed and empowered to succeed enables us to provide the breadth of experience and perspective that best serves our ever more diverse clientele and community.

 

 

We have a tradition of supporting diversity initiatives both within and outside of the Firm. Among the first large Connecticut law firms to have a woman partner, we have been a leader in addressing and advancing women’s causes in the legal profession, and continue to have the highest percentage of female partners among large firms in Connecticut. We assisted in the formation of the Connecticut Lawyers Group on Minority Hiring and Retention in the late 1980s and were an original signatory of the Statement of Sixteen Connecticut Law Firms Regarding the Hiring and Retention of Minority Lawyers in January 1991. The principles of that Statement helped guide us in developing our hiring, mentoring and retention programs and policies to attract and retain diverse legal and non-legal personnel.

In 1993, we established our Diversity Committee, comprised of partners, associates and staff. The Diversity Committee’s original and ongoing mission includes three essential initiatives: (i) to act as a study group and to conduct programs to educate the Firm concerning diversity issues and to suggest diversity policies to implement at the Firm; (ii) to sponsor Firm-wide outreach activities and events, as part of our effort to increase the number of diverse attorneys at the Firm; and (iii) to act as a resource on diversity matters for the Management, Hiring, and Associates Committees, as well as other groups in the Firm. For 15 years, the Diversity Committee has pursued these initiatives and the Firm’s commitment to diversity and inclusiveness.

Together with other members of the Lawyers Collaborative for Diversity and diversity-based law school and bar organizations such as the South Asian Bar Association of Connecticut, the George W. Crawford Black Bar Association, the Black Law Students Association at the University of Connecticut School of Law, the Connecticut Hispanic Bar Association, the Lambda Law Society at the University of Connecticut School of Law, and the Connecticut Asian Pacific American Bar Association, we continue to work to make Connecticut an attractive environment for all lawyers and law students within which to thrive.

Scott Murphy, Managing Partner

Andreana Bellach

Leander Dolphin

Maria Drag

Susan Freedman

Stephen Gellman

Maurice Headley

Gabriel Jiran, Diversity Committee Chair 

Eric Lubochinski 

Sandy Olearcek 

Tara Plochocki

Lori Romano 

Kevin Roy 

Robert Simpson 

Megan Tenney 

Lyn Walker, Diversity Partner 

Latonia Williams

Women attorneys and clients prosper at the firm. Nearly half our associates, 30 percent of our partners and many of our most valued clients are women. To celebrate this array of accomplished women, we are proud to present the Women at the Helm Breakfast Series. Our goal is to bring together diverse and talented women to share ideas and inspiration. At each seminar, a dynamic woman in business, government, medicine, education or the arts will share her insights and experience.