Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP today announced that Hon. Shelley C. Chapman (Ret.), former U.S. Bankruptcy Judge for the Southern District of New York (SDNY), has rejoined the fiirm as Senior Counsel, according to a press release. She will be a member of the firm’s Business Reorganization & Restructuring Department and Chair of a newly formed Alternative Dispute Resolution Practice. Before beginning her service on the bench, Judge Chapman was a partner at Willkie from 2001 to 2010. A widely-recognized leader of the bankruptcy bar, Judge Chapman oversaw the Lehman Brothers Holdings bankruptcy case —the largest bankruptcy case in history — and many other chapter 11 mega-cases and chapter 15 cross-border proceedings, including Boston Generating, Innkeepers, Ambac, LightSquared, Sbarro, NII Holdings, Sabine Oil & Gas, Nine West, Century 21, Aeromexico, and Philippine Airlines. She has also acted as a court-appointed mediator in numerous complex chapter 11 cases, including Windstream, Frontier Communications, OneWeb, Avianca S.A., Purdue Pharma, and Sears, and is currently serving as the lead mediator in the PROMESA/ Title III case of The Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA)/The Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. Committed to furthering excellence in the wider bankruptcy community, she has mentored newly appointed bankruptcy judges and has hosted hundreds of school-age children in her courtroom for mock trials. Rejoining Willkie with Judge Chapman is Jamie Eisen, a former Willkie associate, who joins as Counsel and will work with both the ADR practice and Business Reorganization & Restructuring Department. Jamie served as Judge Chapman’s career law clerk since 2010.
