Richard B. Levin
Richard Levin is a partner in Cravath’s Corporate Department and serves as the Chair of its Restructuring practice. His practice focuses on creditors’ rights, insolvency, reorganization and bankruptcy.
Mr. Levin has negotiated and structured complex domestic and international transactions involving distressed or insolvent companies and guided corporate debtors, creditors and acquirers through Chapter 11 and out-of-court restructurings both in negotiated resolutions and in litigation. His clients have included companies in the manufacturing, auto, technology, energy, utility, financial, telecommunications, real estate, restaurant, retail, gaming and agricultural industries.
Mr. Levin’s more significant recent engagements since joining Cravath have included the representation of the Independent Directors of General Motors Corporation, including advice relating to its Chapter 11 filing; a Johnson & Johnson subsidiary in a Chapter 11 acquisition of Immunicon Corp.; a Ripplewood Partners affiliate in its acquisition of Interstate Bakeries Corp. under a Chapter 11 plan; affiliates of Westbrook Partners in the acquisition of a major Los Angeles real estate development from a subsidiary of Landsource Communities Development LLC in its Chapter 11 case and of a land development from Crown Farm LLC in its Chapter 11 case; Credit Suisse in the Chapter 11 cases of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and affiliates, as well as the Singapore Receivers for Minibond Ltd., a synthetic “CDO-squared” counterparty with claims in the Lehman cases; Banco Santander S.A. and Optimal Investment Services as well as various other investors in the SIPC liquidation of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities, LLC; Credit Suisse as agent for the senior secured lenders in the Tropicana Entertainment LLC Chapter 11 reorganization; New York City Off-Track Betting Corp. in its Chapter 9 case; and numerous other confidential creditor and debtor representations in workout negotiations.
Mr. Levin 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. Mr. Levin 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 since 2002, 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.
Mr. Levin is cited as one of the country’s leading practitioners of bankruptcy and creditor-debtor rights law in The Best Lawyers in America in 2009, 2010 and 2011 and the Guide to the World’s Leading Insolvency and Restructuring Lawyers in the 9th edition and was named by Lawdragon 500 Leading Lawyers in America in 2007, 2009/2010 and 2011. He was recognized by Chambers USA: America’s Leading Lawyers for Business in 2009, 2010 and 2011, The Legal 500 in 2010 and 2011, The International Who’s Who of Insolvency & Restructuring Lawyers in 2009 and 2010, and the K&A Restructuring Register America’s Top 100, a peer listing of bankruptcy experts, in its 2002 through 2007 and 2009 through 2011 editions.
Mr. Levin was born in Los Angeles, California. He received an S.B. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1972 and a J.D. from Yale Law School in 1975, where he was an Editor of the Yale Law Journal. He joined Cravath in 2007.
