The coronavirus is threatening to destroy businesses large and small — and that’s got bankruptcy lawyers’ phones ringing off the hook, Bloomberg News reported. The economic shock of the social isolation measures being taken across the U.S. to mitigate the pandemic threatens to put millions of Americans out of work and leaves companies across a range of industries wondering how they’ll make payroll. Even as bankruptcy lawyers themselves adjust to the new routine of working from home, many are seeing a spike in business they haven’t experienced since the September 2001 terrorist attacks and the 2008 global financial crisis. “I think that at some level this process is going to rewrite the rules of restructuring,” Squire Patton Boggs attorney Karol Denniston said. With a sudden collapse of demand in the airline, restaurant, hotel, oil and gas, and retail industries caused by widespread calls for home quarantines and social distancing, companies are desperately looking for financial strategies. The phones started ringing nonstop over the past week, much as they did in 2008, said Jessica Boelter of Sidley Austin. “This has created emergencies that we have not specifically dealt with before,” Boelter said. In 2008, “everyone learned what mortgage-backed securities were,” said Dan Lowenthal of Patterson Belknap said. Now, he said, “everyone is going to learn what zombie companies are.”
