Calfee, Halter & Griswold LLP announced that H. Jeffrey Schwartz has joined the law firm as partner and co-chair of Calfee’s Business Restructuring and Insolvency practice group. Schwartz will work from Calfee’s Cleveland and newly announced New York City offices.
With a national reputation as a bankruptcy attorney and significant knowledge gained from representing clients across the U.S. and Asia, Schwartz brings more than 30 years of experience representing debtors, secured lenders, fiduciaries and official creditors’ committees in major restructuring and reorganization matters. Schwartz looks forward to continuing to work in New York while also working in his hometown of Cleveland, where he spent his early career representing clients in a series of landmark national and international Chapter 11 cases and successful restructuring matters. Schwartz has spent the past 14 years in New York leading the bankruptcy practices for several global law firms.
“We are thrilled to have Jeff Schwartz join Calfee and, with co-chair Gus Kallergis, lead the firm’s Business Restructuring and Insolvency group. The addition of Jeff further strengthens our highly respected team of talented commercial lawyers. Jeff brings valuable experience with national and international legal matters that will be an asset to the firm’s clients,” said Calfee’s managing partner, Brent D. Ballard.
Throughout his career, Schwartz has directed successful engagements on behalf of debtors such as the Bayou Funds LLC and PTC Steel Alliance, Inc., as well as official creditors’ committees, including those formed in the bankruptcies of Corinthian Colleges, Inc., Digital Domain Media Group, Inc., Coda Automotive, Inc. and Constar International, LLC.
In the structured finance space, Schwartz has represented MBIA, Inc. in the Chapter 11 reorganization case of FGIC Corporation as well as various private equity and hedge funds in other major Chapter 11 cases. He served as lead counsel to Jay Alix as examiner of a $450 million fraud matter in In re Phar Mor, Inc.
Most recently, Schwartz served as lead bankruptcy counsel for the Chapter 7 trustee for ITT Education, Inc. in the prosecution of directors and officers insurance claims, fraudulent transfer claims and professional liability claims relating to in excess of $1 billion in catastrophic damages and for the Official General Unsecured Creditors Committee of Corinthian Colleges, Inc., the largest for-profit, post-secondary education provider to file for Chapter 11 reorganization.
Schwartz has served as a board member for Lexford Residential Properties Trust (NYSE: LFT), Insignia Financial Group (NYSE: IFS) and International Total Services (NASDAQ: ITSW). He is a member of the American Bankruptcy Law Institute and the New York City Bar Association.
“Calfee has had a long-standing, distinguished reputation in the Midwest as a law firm that punches well above its weight in terms of the caliber of legal experience and skills it offers to business clients of all sizes and across diverse industries,” said Schwartz. “I am excited by the level of innovation and smart, targeted growth at the firm. Calfee attorneys are entrepreneurial in their approach to aligning services to their clients’ specific business and legal needs. And their areas of strength in corporate/M&A, capital markets, commercial finance, litigation, insurance recovery, intellectual property, wealth management and government relations fully support the spectrum of legal requirements for the most sophisticated of clients,” he said.
In conjunction with the expansion of the practice, Calfee is opening an office in New York City’s Financial District to service the firm’s U.S. and international clients, especially in its Business Restructuring and Insolvency, Commercial Finance, and Corporate and Capital Markets practice groups, among others.
“The opening of Calfee’s New York office is a key strategic step in serving an expanding list of national and international clients and as we continue to bring important resources to bear in helping our clients solve increasingly complex legal challenges and optimize critical business opportunities in an uncertain economy,” said Ballard.