The International Who's Who of Insolvency & Restructuring Lawyers has brought together four of the leading practitioners in world to discuss key issues facing lawyers today.

John Sandrelli and Owen James of Fraser Milner Casgrain LLP discuss the potentially seminal case of Century Services Inc v Canada (Attorney General) in the insolvency & restructuring arena.

Imagine a repeat of the darkest moments of the Great Recession, and major banks are failing quickly, as exemplified by Lehman Brothers’ bankruptcy filing in September 2008. If this happens again, Congress has ensured the next time will be different – and potentially worse.

James H M Sprayregen and Stephen E Hessler of Kirkland & Ellis LLP share their thoughts on 'too big to fail' banking structures.

The International Who’s Who of Insolvency & Restructuring Lawyers has brought together three of the leading practitioners in the world to discuss key issues facing lawyers today

Bankruptcy practitioners found themselves in the trenches of the financial crisis of 2008-2009. Not only were bankruptcy filings front page news, but they also spurred new developments in bankruptcy law and practice necessitated by the unique circumstances of the economy during that time.

With the benefit of over 14 years of research and tens of thousands of votes from clients and private practitioners, Who’s Who Legal takes a closer look at developing trends in the insolvency & restructuring legal marketplace worldwide.

In this section we anlayse the findings of our research in greater depth to identify the firms and practitioners who stand out worldwide.

Many of the lawyers we interviewed for this book were keen not to sound too upbeat when recounting their experiences in 2009. While corporate transaction levels remained low worldwide and the hardships caused by the financial crisis continued the majority of insolvency and restructuring lawyers we spoke to were managing levels of work “far beyond anything we’ve ever seen before”.

We identify 424 expert insolvency and restructuring lawyers across 44 jurisdictions. Some of the leaders are highlighted here.

Following the global economic downturn, insolvency and restructuring work has become an increasingly prominent part of many lawyers’ practice and there is no exception for those working in the CIS. Twenty individuals are included.

Several firms are listed in multiple countries. Allen & Overy LLP has a strong contingent in the following pages with a total of six lawyers.

Emma Notfors takes a closer look at the issues facing insolvency & restructuring lawyers.

The current economic climate means that insolvency and restructuring lawyers are finding themselves in ever greater demand. In California many corporate lawyers are choosing to focus more of their time in this area - particularly in restructuring. The specialists we spoke to said this has been a particularly busy year, with all signs pointing to even higher levels of activity in 2009.

Following a period of cheap, accessible credit and economic stability, which led to a slowdown in corporate bankruptcies, 2008 has witnessed a marked increase in such filings as the credit crunch continues to influence global markets.

The country's economic crisis, which began in the mid-1990s, climaxing in recession and the sovereign debt deafult at the turn of the century increased the workload for Argentina's insolvency and restructuring lawyers, but as the economy began to recover, the number of legal cases declined. However, in the past few years changes in the global economy and difficulties closer to home have led to a further rise in the number of insolvency and restructuring cases.