Profile: Donald S Bernstein

Insolvency and Restructuring

Biography: Insolvency & Restructuring

Mr Bernstein is a member of Davis Polk & Wardwell's corporate department and focuses on insolvency law. He represents creditors, debtors, liquidators, receivers, indenture trustees and acquirers in major corporate restructurings and chapter 11 cases. He also advises financial institutions and other clients regarding credit risks involved in derivatives, securities transactions, and other domestic and international financial transactions. His representation emphasises the corporate, strategic and financial aspects of restructuring, recapitalising, buying and selling troubled businesses.

He has represented major creditors or official creditors' committees in many bankruptcies and restructurings, including those of Delphi, Refco, Enron, Conseco, Adelphia, Bethlehem Steel, Polaroid, McLeodUSA, Dow Corning, Memorex Telex, R H Macy, Morrison-Knudsen, Drexel Burnham Lambert, Crown Paper, US Office Products and Toshoku America. He has represented the debtors, liquidators or receivers in insolvency proceedings involving Manville, LTV, Allis-Chalmers, Lomas Financial, L J Hooker and Princeton Economics/Cresvale International. He also counsels a number of global financial institutions with respect to multi-jurisdictional risk management.

Mr Bernstein joined Davis Polk in 1978 and became a partner in 1986.

He graduated from Princeton University in 1975 and received his JD from the University of Chicago Law School in 1978.

Mr Bernstein is chair of the National Bankruptcy Conference, a group of 60 leading lawyers, law professors and judges that advises Congress on bankruptcy legislation. He is also a member of the American College of Bankruptcy, where he is a director, and the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, where he has chaired the committee on bankruptcy and corporate reorganisation. He is a founding director of the International Insolvency Institute; a member of the New York County Lawyers Association, where he has served on the board of directors; and co-chair of the TriBar Opinion Committee. His membership in the American Bar Association includes serving on the business bankruptcy committee and the committee on legal opinions. He also is a member of INSOL International, where he is co-chair of the G-36 committee, is a member of the American Bankruptcy Institute and has been a member of the official US delegation to the insolvency working group of the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL).

Mr Bernstein is on the board of editors of, and a contributor to, Collier on Bankruptcy and was the co-reporter for the TriBar Opinion Committee's special report, 'Opinions in the Bankruptcy Context'. Recent publications include 'Absolute Priority, Valuation Uncertainty and the Reorganization Bargain' (with Professor Douglas G Baird), 115 Yale L J 1930 (2006) and 'A Reorganization Lawyer's Perspective on Professor Warren's Vanishing Trials', 79 Am Bankr L J 943 (2006).

He is listed as a leading lawyer in Law Business Research's Who's Who Legal: The International Who's Who of Insolvency and Restructuring Lawyers (2006), Legal Media Group's The Best of the Best (2006), Chambers Global: Leaders in Their Field (2005-2006), Chambers USA(2005), Euromoney's Guide to the World's Leading Insolvency and Restructuring Lawyers (2005), PLC's Cross-Border Restructuring & Insolvency Handbook (2005) and was named Who's Who Legal 'Insolvency and Restructuring Lawyer of the Year' (2005).