Throughout her career, Kathleen M. Aiello has developed a practice dedicated to representing clients in all facets of Chapter 11 and Chapter 7 bankruptcy cases; including significant litigation experience both in and out of the courtroom. Kathleen frequently appears in the bankruptcy courts for both the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York.
Kathleen primarily represents Chapter 7 trustees in large, medium and small wind-downs and liquidations, including asset sales, litigation against former directors and officers, and claims objections. Kathleen has represented debtors in Chapter 11 reorganizations, as well as fiduciaries appointed to operate the debtor in liquidating Chapter 11 cases.
In addition, Kathleen has significant experience representing creditors’ rights in Chapter 7 and Chapter 11 bankruptcy cases, including landlord rights, secured lenders and other unsecured creditors and defense of claims objections.
She has experience performing this work in a variety of industries, including real estate development, restaurants, transportation and retail. Kathleen also prosecutes and defends clients in Chapter 5 avoidance actions in both Chapter 11 and Chapter 7 bankruptcy proceedings, including a large national furniture chain, a major financial institution, an international media company, healthcare and transportation.
Representative Matters :
- Represented Trustee in liquidating Chapter 11 case involving the sale of real property, which realized more than 140% of the estimated value of the property at the time of filing, successfully confirmed a Chapter 11 plan and resolved all remaining claims against the net proceeds in a global settlement approved by all creditors and the bankruptcy court.
- Represented Chapter 11 Trustee in case involving a debtor who is the co-owner of multi-family rental properties in Bronx, New York, which involved significant oversight and management of the properties and, ultimately, liquidation of the properties in connection with confirmation of a liquidating Chapter 11 plan.
- Represented Chapter 7 Trustee in administering the bankruptcy cases of four real estate investment companies, alleged to be perpetuating a fraudulent, Ponzi-like investment scheme.
- Represented a financial institution in a bankruptcy court action involving the valuation of several hundred complex interest rate swaps terminated as a result of Lehman Brothers’ failure.
Before becoming an attorney, Kathleen was previously a senior associate in the Forensic Services practice group at KPMG LLP, where she worked with lawyers, former prosecutors, FBI agents, journalists and law enforcement officials, on various aspects of corporate investigations, including an international fraud scheme in a Chapter 7 bankruptcy. Her work at KPMG focused primarily on performing anti-money laundering and anti-terrorist financing compliance reviews for several large financial institutions in Korea, Japan, China and the United States. She was integral in developing proprietary tools to assess compliance in response to regulatory examinations, including creating a transaction look-back database to analyze bank transactions for indicia of suspicious activity to satisfy regulatory reporting requirements. Kathleen also conducted a Foreign Corrupt Practices Act investigation in the Sao Paolo, Brazil branch of a U.S.-based online gaming company.
During law school, Kathleen was a law clerk in the New Jersey Office of the Attorney General. She was also a participant, board member and recipient of an award for Top 10 Brief in the Rutgers School of Law-Camden’s Moot Court and a practitioner in the Children’s Justice and Street Law Clinics.
EDUCATION :
- Rutgers Law School (J.D., 2008)
- Georgetown University (B.S., 2002)
MEMBERSHIPS :
- American Bankruptcy Institute
- Turnaround Management Association
- New York Institute of Credit
- Association of Insolvency & Restructuring Advisors
COURT ADMISSIONS :
- U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York
- U.S. District Court, Eastern District of New York
- U.S. District Court, District of New Jersey
BAR ADMISSIONS : New Jersey, New York.
Cost
Rate : $$$