Brown Rudnick

The New York office of Brown Rudnick houses some of the litigators that receive the firm's most ardent support, particularly in the bankruptcy arena. In this capacity, Brown Rudnick is acknowledged for its specialty of representing creditors and, as one peer puts it, "really doing an effective job of pursuing every nook and cranny to chip away at the stone wall that debtors throw up in bankruptcy proceedings until they finally break it down. And they're going up against some of the top names on the debtors' side." Clients also cheer the firm, with one testifying, "I chose Brown Rudnick as co-counsel because of their reputation for being smart, lean and aggressive. They know the New York courts like the backs of their hands and lack a lot of less-desirable elements I've witnessed in a lot of New York lawyers." Edward Weisfelner is the firm's most uniformly praised practitioner in these matters. Weisfelner is providing bankruptcy counsel to plaintiff lawyers who seek to hold General Motors responsible for nearly 60 class-action lawsuits, seeking over $10 billion in damages, concerning a recall of over 2.5 million vehicles that have been linked to 13 deaths worldwide. GM is attempting to use its 2009 bankruptcy filing to shield itself from these suits. Practice group leader David Molton is acting with Weisfelner on this hotly contested matter and is another frequent peer mention, with one confirming, "David is just a true trial lawyer, with a bankruptcy twist. He also does a lot of restructuring work but not in the normal sense – he's doing a lot of cross-border insolvency work. He gets foreign debtors access to US courts. He has a great relationship with the mass torts bar here in the US – when they force companies into bankruptcy, the Brown Rudnick guys get the call." A vocal contingent of clients also lend support to Molton's acumen, with one addressing him as "a world-class expert in his field relating to contentious insolvency/bankruptcy, an incredibly commercially minded and shrewd tactician." Another enthuses, "David is results-oriented and highly skilled in dealing with the most complex commercial litigation and bankruptcy-related issues. He really hit the ball out of the park for me when I needed him to." Peers also applaudRobert Stark, with one affirming, "If you need a 'high-minded street fighter' in the creditors' rights world, Stark is your man. He forces you to cut the crap and face the music, which, in these minefield-like bankruptcy cases, is no picnic." Outside of the bankruptcy sphere, the firm made a substantial augmentation to its bench in the antitrust arena this year in adding Helene Jaffe, who decamped from Proskauer to join the firm in 2015. "Helene is a great antitrust lawyer, who does do some deal clearance work but she also actually goes to court and litigates the cases," confirms a peer, who goes on to elaborate, "She also does a hell of a job at it, better than most."