Stephen D. Lerner is global chair of the Squire Patton Boggs Restructuring & Insolvency Practice Group. Having practiced for 35 years, Stephen has an extensive national and cross-border restructuring practice in which he represents debtors, committees of unsecured creditors, secured and unsecured creditors, equity interest holders and acquirers of troubled businesses in Chapter 11 reorganization cases, Chapter 9 municipal restructurings, Chapter 15 cases and out-of-court restructurings throughout the United States, Europe, Asia, South America and most recently in the United Arab Emirates and India. Stephen has led the representation of clients in the Chapter 11 cases of Lehman Brothers, Enron, Chrysler, WorldCom, FirstEnergy Solutions, AmFin Financial, Blackjewel, Hartshorne Mining Group, Midway Gold, and EaglePicher, among many others. Stephen is currently serving as lead restructuring counsel for Ferrellgas. He has served as special counsel to the State of New Jersey in the out of court restructuring of Atlantic City and as lead restructuring advisor to Dana Gas PJSC, the largest independent gas company in the Middle East, in its $700 million Islamic financing restructuring. Stephen also represented the Court Appointed Expert in the City of Detroit’s historic Chapter 9 case.
Stephen is a Fellow of the American College of Bankruptcy for which he formerly served as a Director and Chair of the Board of Regents, and currently serves as Chair of the International Committee. He was elected a Conferee of the National Bankruptcy Conference in 2020. Stephen is a Director and member of the Executive Committee of the American Bankruptcy Institute (ABI) and the former Chair of the Advisory Board of ABI’s Midwest Regional Bankruptcy Seminar. Stephen also currently serves as a member of the Attorney Advisory Committee of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Ohio. This Advisory Committee developed the framework and guidelines for recently enacted Complex Chapter 11 Case Rules for the District.
Every year since 2004, Stephen has been placed in the highest echelon of Ohio’s bankruptcy and restructuring lawyers by Chambers USA: America’s Leading Lawyers for Business and every year since 2009 Chambers has named Stephen one of an elite group of bankruptcy and restructuring lawyers in the US to receive a Star Individual ranking.
Stephen regularly contributes to bankruptcy and restructuring scholarship and has taught and lectured at scores of conferences throughout the United States, Europe and Canada, including at the National Conference of Bankruptcy Judges, ABI’s Annual Spring Meeting and Winter Leadership Conference, TMA Europe’s 2016 Annual Conference in Rome, ABI’s 2019 International Insolvency & Restructuring Symposium in Paris and numerous other ABI seminars. He has served as a guest lecturer at Harvard Business School, the University of Michigan Law School, the Moritz College of Law at The Ohio State University and the University of Cincinnati Law School.