Susheel Kirpalani

Susheel Kirpalani is the Head of Special Situations and founder of the firm’s Bankruptcy and Restructuring Group. For more than 30 years, Susheel has been at the forefront of legal issues on behalf of companies and investors in numerous “first ever” situations. In addition to being an accomplished courtroom advocate, Susheel regularly supports transactional lawyers behind the scenes with creativity and passion for problem-solving. Chambers ranks him in Band One, stating “Susheel is among the strongest bankruptcy lawyers in the market. It is unusual to find such strong litigation skills as well as commercial sense and deal-orientation in the same person.”

Susheel’s notable representations include:

Examiner and mediator in Dynegy and Cenveo;

Independent fiduciaries in Voyager Digital, Crew, Accuride, and NII International;

Special litigation counsel to the company in Wesco Aircraft, TriMark, Bittrex, Kingfisher Midstream, New GM, Washington Mutual, American Home Mortgage, and Solutia;

Private equity sponsors in LyondellBasell, Fisker Automotive, Sabine Oil & Gas, and Sbarro;

Founders of WeWork and Steward Health Care;

Statutory creditors’ committees in Lehman Brothers, Enron, Refco, Sentinel, SemCrude, RadioShack, Idearc, and NewPage;

The ad hoc groups of COFINA Senior and Lawful Constitutional Debt Coalition Bondholders during Puerto Rico’s financial crisis,* as well as the lead monoline in Jefferson County’s Chapter 9 case;

Litigation trustees of Lucky Bucks, Physiotherapy, Remington Outdoor, SemCrude, and Refco;

Government of Antigua & Barbuda in amending their Company Act legislation;

Dubai World in drafting Dubai’s legislation for public decree companies;

The Joint Liquidators of the Kingate Global and Euro Funds in Madoff’s SIPC case; and

The foreign representatives of OAS and InterCement in U.S. aspects of their Brazil judicial recovery proceedings.

*In connection with the Puerto Rico financial crisis, at the request of the Speaker of the House, Susheel worked on the bill and testified before Congress regarding the fairness of the restructuring title of the Puerto Rico Oversight, Management, and Economic Stability Act (PROMESA), which was promptly enacted into law in a bipartisan vote.

Susheel is a member of the National Bankruptcy Conference and is a Fellow of the American College of Bankruptcy. He is also a recipient of the South Asian Bar Association of New York’s esteemed Litigation Achievement Award.

Susheel is a frequent lecturer and panelist across the country on topics relating to financial crisis litigation and emerging developments in bankruptcy. He is also a member of the Dean’s Planning Council of Fordham University School of Law, where he has created an endowed fund for public service legal work. Susheel also endowed the annual symposium of the Center for Ethnic, Racial, and Religious Understanding at Queens College of the City University of New York.