Profile: Richard B Levin

Insolvency and Restructuring

Biography: Insolvency & Restructuring

Richard Levin is a partner in the Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP restructuring department. Rich's practice focuses on bankruptcy and reorganisation transactions. He has been involved in numerous Chapter 11 and out-of-court restructuring matters, representing corporate debtors, creditors and acquirers, in both domestic and international transactions. He has significant experience in guiding clients through insolvency restructuring or bankruptcy reorganisation, negotiating and structuring complex deals involving distressed or insolvent companies and, where necessary directing litigation in support of the negotiations. Rich's clients have included companies undergoing reorganisations in the energy, utility, financial, telecommunications, technology, real estate, restaurant, retail, gaming and agricultural industries, as well as acquirers and creditors in many of those industries.

Rich's recent representations prior to joining Cravath have included Refco Inc. in its Chapter 11 case, JPMorgan Chase in its role as agent for senior lenders in AMERCO's Chapter 11 reorganisation, UGC Communications in connection with concurrent US Chapter 11 and Dutch Akoord proceedings to restructure more than US$5 billion of debt, two major Western electric utilities in restructuring power-related obligations and avoiding bankruptcy following the California energy crisis, and Hollywood Casino Shreveport in a Chapter 11 transfer of control and restructuring of secured public debt.

Rich was counsel to a subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee from 1975 to 1978, where he was one of the primary authors of the 1978 Bankruptcy Code. He currently serves as vice chair of the National Bankruptcy Conference and is a member of the Board of Directors and a Fellow of the American College of Bankruptcy. Rich has served as a consultant to the World Bank and to the Central Bank of Brazil regarding Brazil's 2005 bankruptcy legislation, as Faculty at the Federal Judicial Center's Bankruptcy Judge Workshops, and as a Lecturer in Law at Harvard Law School. He is a frequent lecturer on bankruptcy law in continuing legal education programs and is a regularly published author in the legal press.

Rich is cited as one of the country's leading practitioners of bankruptcy and creditor-debtor rights law in The Best Lawyers in America 2008 and named as a leading lawyer in Lawdragon magazine in 2007. He has also been recognized in Chambers USA 2007: America's Leading Lawyers for Business, The International Who's Who of Insolvency & Restructuring Lawyers 2007, and the K&A Restructuring Register, a peer listing of bankruptcy experts, in its 2002 through 2007 editions.

Rich was born in Los Angeles, California. He received an SB from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1972 and a JD from Yale Law School in 1975, where he was an editor of the Yale Law Journal. He joined Cravath in 2007 as a restructuring partner.