The 2023 Lawdragon 500 Leading Bankruptcy & Restructuring Lawyers

We’re honored to present The Lawdragon 500 Leading Bankruptcy & Restructuring Lawyers for 2023.

This elite corps of U.S. lawyers represent the best of the best helping companies navigate ailing economies and uncertain times.

Much like the present moment.

Law firms began staffing up their bankruptcy ranks several years back in anticipation of a downturn. Covid oddly prolonged the slow-motion plummet. And, as a prescient James Bromley of Sullivan & Cromwell observed for Reuters in September 2021, financing conditions at the time herded some investors to pursue riskier investments for better returns.

“Those questionable investments will likely turn south,” he said, leading to an uptick in corporate bankruptcy filings in 2022 or 2023 as borrowers are unable to live up to the terms of their deals.

“There are bad deals that are attracting a lot of money and those bad deals will go bad,” Bromley said.

And here we are. Bromley is co-head of the firm’s Global Restructuring practice, which is currently on the front lines representing FTX Trading Ltd. in Chapter 11 proceedings; and acting as Chapter 11 debtor's counsel to SVB Financial Group (once the parent of Silicon Valley Bank). 

Lawyers recognized here range from transactional lawyers whose ways with finance can transform a distressed company to financial litigators, both of the traditional bankruptcy court variety and, increasingly, those who challenge and defend financial restructuring moves that have become inherent to distressed deals.

We selected these lawyers through our time-honed process combining journalistic research of those lawyers at the forefront of our distressed days with robust submissions from peers, competitors and firms. We vet the candidates with their colleagues and check, as well, that they are respected, if not beloved, by clients and other counsel.

Among their signature traits is the ability to be calm, deliberate and creative while it feels worlds crash around them. They find the through line to the future. A good lesson in uncertain times.

Our guide is 35 percent female and 14 percent inclusive.