Law firm Kaye Scholer has brought over five partners to its creditors' rights group from rival Clifford Chance. Margot Schonholtz, Mark Liscio, Madlyn Gleich Primoff, Scott Talmadge and Jill Kurtzman are joining the firm's business reorganization and creditors' rights practice. Schonholz, who is joining as co-head of the practice, said the team has traditionally worked with a major group of commercial and investment banks including ABN Amro, Bank of America, CIBC World Markets, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and Wachovia Bank.
Schonholtz, who represents institutional creditors, agents to syndicated lending groups and official and unofficial creditors' committees, said, "Kaye Scholer will be able to handle just about anything from a creditor perspective." In addition to the five bankruptcy/restructuring partners from Clifford Chance, all three counsels in the bankruptcy/restructuring group and four associates and one paralegal made the move.
Right now, out-of-court restructurings and bankruptcy filings are down, and have been for about a year. But Schonholtz expects this to pick up at the end of '05. "There is a lot of debt that needs to be refinanced and there is a lot of exuberant debt and we expect to see more activity," she said. But the team is still busy. "We've had the continuing litigation trail from Enron [Corp], Adelphia [Communications Corp.] and Yukos." Also, there is debt trading, with the market in London and Europe really picking up, she added.