Bankruptcy and Creditors' Rights

Following a careful evaluation of the troubled financial condition of many businesses during the 1980s, Kohrman Jackson & Krantz created a practice focusing in the areas of business reorganization and creditors’ rights. From single-debt repayment plans to multi-million dollar Chapter 11 bankruptcies, we offer a wide range of services essential to creating plans that solve the financial difficulties encountered by today’s businesses.

Our attorneys are skilled in the use of various formal and informal debt restructuring processes as strategic corporate planning tools. Because of our experience with debt restructuring, we are well suited to negotiate and, if necessary, litigate to achieve maximum repayment and protection for clients faced with the prospect of a defaulting debtor.

Our bankruptcy experience includes representation of secured lenders in both reorganization and liquidation cases, Chapter 11 debtors, trustees for Chapter 11 debtors and purchasers of reorganized debtors and debtors’ assets out of bankruptcy. We also specialize in assisting reclamation claimants, defendants in fraudulent transfer and preference actions, large unsecured creditors and individual debtors subject to nondischargeability actions. Our recent successes include:

• Resolving an action which sought to hold an officer of a bankrupt corporation personally liable for more than $500,000 of the corporation’s obligations
• Obtaining a voluntary dismissal of an action which sought $1 million in damages from our client for allegedly assisting an insolvent debtor to defraud its creditors
• Negotiating debtor-in-possession financing to provide for full payment to our client, who was the largest secured creditor
• Obtaining payment in full for a client who sold over $100,000 worth of goods to a company just prior to its filing a Chapter 11 bankruptcy
• Successfully defending an action seeking to have more than $1 million declared nondischargeable. The plaintiff creditor unilaterally dismissed the case a week before trial
• Winning a Sixth Circuit appeal on the question of whether a lessor is entitled to be paid in full when a debtor vacates leased premises before month’s end

For more information about our bankruptcy and creditors’ rights practice, please contact Mary K. Whitmer at 216·736·7255 or mkw@kjk.com.