Emil A. Kleinhaus is a partner at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, where he focuses on litigation and advisory work relating to bankruptcy, insolvency and creditors’ rights. His areas of expertise include chapter 11 reorganizations, fraudulent transfer and fiduciary claims, and disputes under credit agreements and indentures.
Emil has been involved in a broad range of litigation and restructuring matters. He represented JPMorgan Chase in the defense of wide-ranging litigation arising out of the Bernard Madoff fraud and the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy. He has represented major parties in chapter 11 cases including Neiman Marcus, General Motors, Toys “R” Us., and Energy Future Holdings. He has also handled significant disputes relating to out-of-court transactions. As counsel for Education Management in its out-of-court restructuring, Emil argued and won a precedent-setting appeal in the Marblegate case from a judgment under the Trust Indenture Act.
Emil is the author of more than a dozen publications, including “Prepayment Clauses in Bankruptcy,” 15 Am. Bankr. Inst. L. Rev. 537 (2007), “Debt Repayments as Fraudulent Transfers,” 88 Am. Bankr. L.J. 307 (2014), and “The Enforceability of Ipso Facto Clauses in Financing Arrangements: American Airlines and Beyond,” 23 Norton J. of Bankr. L. and Prac. 193 (2014). He is the author of a chapter in Collier on Bankruptcy. He served as co-chair of the Bankruptcy Litigation Committee of the Federal Bar Council and chair of the New York City Bar Association’s Subcommittee on Fraudulent Conveyance Law. Emil has been identified as a leading lawyer in the litigation and bankruptcy areas by publications such as Benchmark Litigation, Lawdragon and Law360. In 2018, Emil received the James H. Fogelson Emerging Leadership Award from the Lawyers Division of the UJA Federation of New York.
Emil received a B.A., summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, from Yale College, and a J.D. from Yale Law School, where he was an Articles Editor of the Yale Law Journal. Following law school, he served as a law clerk for Chief Judge Michael B. Mukasey of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York and for Judge José A. Cabranes of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.