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| Practice: | Business Reorganization, Bankruptcy and Insolvency |
| | Experience: | Neal focuses his practice in the areas of bankruptcy, business reorganizations, workouts, and commercial litigation. His diverse insolvency and bankruptcy practice has involved the representation of secured and unsecured creditors, creditors' committees, debtors, trustees, lessors, and purchasers of stock or assets of insolvent entities.
His commercial litigation experience has included the successful trial and arbitration of cases involving the Uniform Commercial Code, lender liability, fraudulent conveyance, partnership, securities, business tort, and contract issues. These trials have resulted in a number of reported decisions from the United States District Court and United States Court of Appeals.
In recent years, Neal has also represented a large, national insurance company in multiple highly-disputed rate regulation cases. Working closely with expert actuaries and economists, he has tried two of these cases in the states of Alabama and California.
Prior to joining Butler Rubin, Neal was a partner at the law firms of Katten Muchin Rosenman (Chicago), 2008; Dewey & LeBoeuf and LeBoeuf Lamb Greene & MacRae (Chicago and San Francisco), 2003-2008; Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe (San Francisco and Los Angeles), 1999-2003; Schwartz, Cooper, Greenberger & Krauss (Chicago), 1995-1999; Winston & Strawn (Chicago), 1983-1995; and Lewis and Roca (Phoenix), 1974-1983.
Neal has been recognized as a leading individual in bankruptcy/restructuring in the 2010 edition of Chambers USA - America's Leading Lawyers for Business, reporting "Neal Wolf …is described as an 'effective strategist who acts with poise in the courtroom.'" He was listed among 100 "Bay Area Superlawyers" (San Francisco Magazine, 2002-2006), "Illinois Superlawyers" (Chicago Magazine, 2006-2009), and in The Best Lawyers in America (all published editions). |
| | Representative Matters: | Neal’s notable representations include:
Debtors – Neal has represented a number of debtors in significant Chapter 11 cases and out-of-court restructurings. The debtors for which he has served as lead bankruptcy or workout counsel have included HA-LO Industries, Inc., an industry-leading promotional products company; Midwest Processing Company in one of the seminal reported cases involving the issue of a bad faith filing of an involuntary Chapter 11 case; and VMS Realty in its huge out-of-court real estate workout. He currently serves as lead restructuring counsel to one of the world’s largest, privately-held developers and owners of shopping centers, hotel properties, other commercial properties, and residential developments.
VMS was owned by, among other persons and entities, Xerox Financial and Robert Van Kampen. VMS and its more than 100 directly or indirectly controlled affiliates (including limited partnerships, corporations, real estate investment trusts, and joint ventures) had over $9.4 billion in real estate assets and approximately $9 billion in secured liabilities owed largely to banks and insurance companies. The VMS assets included shopping centers, apartment buildings, office buildings, hotels, resorts, casinos, and a large number of developments projects, subdivisions, and projects under construction. As lead workout/bankruptcy counsel, Neal negotiated both an initial creditor standstill agreement and a later "Creditor Repayment Agreement" (signed by all but a few of the secured creditors) which enabled the VMS entities to achieve an orderly out-of-court workout and settlement of multiple pending lawsuits, including a large class action lawsuit. While it was necessary to file individual bankruptcy cases on behalf of a few of the VMS-controlled entities (perhaps five out of 100), in the case of all of the controlling VMS entities (the parent companies) and the vast majority of the controlled entities, bankruptcy was averted.
Secured Creditors – Among the secured creditors Neal has represented throughout his career are Principal Life, Lincoln National, Delaware Investments, CIGNA, The CIT Group, Citicorp North America, Citibank, Bank of America, Bankers Trust Company, NBD Bank, First National Bank of Chicago, Firstar Bank, LaSalle Bank, National Westminster Bank, Société General, Fleet Capital Corporation, Bank One, Sanwa Business Credit, Coast Business Credit, FINOVA Capital, and GE Capital.
Committees of Unsecured Creditors – Neal has served as counsel to the official unsecured creditors committees in the Stone & Webster Chapter 11 case, which involved the liquidation of a major construction and engineering firm with several billion dollars of creditor claims; the UNR Industries, Inc. Chapter 11 case, one of the earliest of the asbestos liability-driven Chapter 11 cases; and the Federated Department Stores Chapter 11 case. In addition, he was counsel to over 2,000 "Dalkon Shield" victims in the A. H. Robins Chapter 11 case. He currently serves as counsel to the Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors of The Fairchild Corporation and its affiliates, and as “conflicts counsel” to the official committees of unsecured creditors of both Bally Total Fitness in its chapter 11 case in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York and Hartmarx Corporation in its chapter 11 case in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Illinois.
Railroad Reorganization – Neal has substantial expertise in the railroad reorganization area, having successfully represented the debtor, an operating railroad, in the Chicago, Central & Pacific case, and Citicorp and Heller Financial, the secured lenders, in hotly contested priming lien litigation in the Chicago, Missouri & Western Railway and the Chicago, South Shore & South Bend Railroad Chapter 11 cases. |
| | Bar Admissions: | Neal is admitted to practice in the States of California and Illinois, as well as the U.S. Supreme Court; the U.S. Court of Appeals for Seventh, Eighth and Ninth Circuits; the U.S. District Court for Northern District of Illinois; the Western District of Wisconsin; the Northern, Southern, Eastern and Central Districts of California; the District of Arizona; and the Western District of Texas. |
| | Industry Involvement: | Fellow, American College of Bankruptcy |
| | Articles: | The New Chapter 11 Means Test, Corporate Counsel, October 2009
The Business of Bankruptcy, Corporate Counsel, September 2009
Collateral Damage in the Wake of the GM Restructuring, Corporate Counsel, August 2009
"Take My Assets – Please!," Corporate Counsel, July 2009
Coming Soon to a Bankruptcy Court Near, or Perhaps Not-So-Near to You, Corporate Counsel, June 2009
"Don't Look Back ...," Corporate Counsel, May 2009
CreditorWars in the New Millennium, Corporate Counsel, April 2009
Contributing Editor, Norton Bankruptcy Law and Practice
Author of numerous articles on bankruptcy law and related topics, with recent publications including a series of articles on fraudulent conveyance law, inter-creditor disputes in bankruptcy, sales under section 363 of the Bankruptcy Code, the new bankruptcy statutes of the People’s Republic of China, and the changing complexion of chapter 11.
| | Speeches: | Frequent guest lecturer on bankruptcy law topics, Northwestern University Kellogg School of Management and the American Law Institute of the ABA
Speaker, Thirty-Ninth Annual Barbara A. Everly Bankruptcy Seminar, July 2009
Speaker, National Conference of Bankruptcy Judges, on the topic of sales of assets under Section 363 of the Bankruptcy Code, October 2003 |
| | Education: | J.D., University of Chicago Law School, 1974
A.B., magna cum laude, Princeton University, 1970 |
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