On the Move

Otterbourg, Steindler, Houston & Rosen, P.C. of New York has announced that former Chief Judge of the Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of New York, Melanie L. Cyganowski, has become a member of the law firm. Cyganowski served as a bankruptcy judge for 14 years, from 1993 to 2007. During the last two years she was the Chief Judge. Cyganowski left the bench to join Greenberg Traurig in New York before her move to become a member of Otterbourg's creditors' rights and insolvency practice group. Before her judgeship, Cyganowski practiced at Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy LLP for four years and Sullivan and Cromwell LLP for seven years.

Weil, Gotshal & Manges, led by Harvey Miller, is representing Lehman Brothers, which filed a Chapter 11 petition on Sept. 15. The case was filed in the Southern District of New York and has been assigned to Bankruptcy Judge James Peck, formerly co-chair of the Business Reorganization Department of Schulte Roth & Zabel and a long-time member of this Newsletter's Board of Editors. In addition, Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy has been named counsel to the creditors' committee in the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy. The firm's restructuring practice group leader, Dennis F. Dunne, will lead the Milbank team. These two firms previously worked together on the Enron Corp. bankruptcy, in which Weil Gotshal also served as debtor's counsel and Milbank represented the creditors' committee. With $639 billion listed in assets and $613 billion in debt, the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy is substantially the largest bankruptcy ever filed. Enron, which was the previously the largest filing, claimed approximately $60 billion in assets. Citibank, the single largest creditor of Lehman Brothers has a claim of $138 billion.