Andrew Kassner, Mike Stewart Discuss History of Big Law Bankruptcy Practices With Law360

Finance and restructuring partners Andrew Kassner and Mike Stewart, both former leaders of the firm’s finance and restructuring practice group, provided an overview of the history of bankruptcy practices in major law firms in the Law360 article “Pages From Restructuring History: BigLaw And Bankruptcy.” 

The article noted that while bankruptcy practices in “BigLaw” firms are now common, that wasn’t the case until Congress overhauled bankruptcy law with the Bankruptcy Reform Act of 1978. As the need for creditor and debtor work grew, many firms began to open dedicated bankruptcy practices, including Faegre Drinker, Kassner said. 

"The Bankruptcy Code that really started getting used in earnest in the mid-80s changed all of that, because now you have big firms handling major public company reorganizations," Kassner noted. 

"Bankruptcy became big business," Kassner added.

Stewart, who was recruited to the firm’s newly formed bankruptcy group in 1981, said bankruptcy lawyers throughout the 1980s began developing restructuring techniques and strategies that are modern Chapter 11 staples. 

"Our clients that are very sophisticated started to realize the many tools that would be available to them if they wanted to acquire a business and strip off the old liabilities that they would otherwise have to deal with," Stewart said. 

Stewart said that while big law firms handled many of these increasingly complex cases, client needs were shaping how they used the Bankruptcy Code.

"A lot was driven by these really large companies that could see opportunities that simply did not exist before," he recalled.