Donald S. Bernstein

Donald S. Bernstein is a partner with the international law firm Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP based in New York, where he is Practice Group Coordinator and co-Head of the firm’s Insolvency and Restructuring Practice Group. Mr. Bernstein’s practice includes representing debtors, creditors, liquidators, receivers and acquirers in major corporate restructurings and insolvency proceedings, as well as advising financial institutions regarding resolution planning and the credit risks involved in derivatives, securities transactions, and other domestic and international financial transactions. He is a past chair of the National Bankruptcy Conference, a Commissioner on the ABI Commission to Study the Reform of Chapter 11, a director and member of the Executive Committee of the International Insolvency Institute and a past director of the American College of Bankruptcy. He has been Treasurer and a member of the Executive Committee of The Association of the Bar of the City of New York, and is a former Chair of the New York City Bar Association’s Committee on Bankruptcy and Corporate Reorganization and of the TriBar Opinion Committee. He is also on the Board of Editors of Collier on Bankruptcy and is Editor-in-Chief of the International Insolvency Review. Mr. Bernstein served as a member of the Official United States Delegation to the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law and participated in the development of UNCITRAL’s Model Law on Cross Border Insolvency. He also has been a member of the Legal Advisory Panel of the Financial Stability Board. Mr. Bernstein is invited frequently to lecture and teach on insolvency law and bank regulatory and resolution issues, including in recent years at Princeton, Harvard, The University of Chicago, Columbia, The University of Pennsylvania, New York University and St. John’s University. Mr. Bernstein graduated from Princeton University and received his J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School.