Lisa Beckerman

Lisa G. Beckerman advises on corporate restructurings and creditors’ rights, working with clients across the country in a broad range of industries, including manufacturing, airlines, media, energy and real estate. She assists both in Chapter 11 cases and out-of-court restructurings.Lisa’s clients appreciate her legal skill in handling high-end, complex restructurings. One reported in Chambers USA: “She performed wonderfully in a case that needed to be handled skillfully. She did a good job positioning herself.”

Lisa’s clients include:

• Official creditors’ committees
• Informal groups of creditors
• Hedge funds
• Private equity funds
• Debtors.

Experience:

• More than 25 years’ experience in corporate restructurings, with a particular focus on creditors’ rights.
• Assists in high-end insolvency matters in a wide range of industries.

Representative Work:

• Advised the ad hoc noteholders of Stone Energy Corporation. During the company’s restructuring, the team successfully argued that the company’s assets should be open to additional bidders. The assets ultimately sold for US$ 527 million, US$ 167 million more than originally contemplated by Stone. This case involved significant plan confirmation litigation relating to objections by various licensors of the debtor’s seismic data. Although these claims were potentially in the hundreds of millions of dollars, the team successfully negotiated a settlement that resolved all seismic objections for an aggregate payment of US$ 3.3 million.
• Advising the debtor-in-possession lenders and first lien lenders in Mission Coal’s Chapter 11 cases, where the debtors are trying to sell all of its assets, either through a Section 363 sale or a plan of reorganization within a short period.
• Advised Media News Group in a successful acquisition of the storied Boston Herald for approximately US$12 million through a Section 363 sale.
• Advising FirstEnergy Solutions Corp. (FES) in its $5 billion debt restructuring, which is among the largest and most complex filings of 2018. Lisa was part of a team that devised a multipronged operational and balance-sheet restructuring strategy in an effort to save plants and more than 3,000 jobs. To date, FES has secured big wins over contract counterparties on rejecting costly power purchase agreements and has developed a massive public affairs operation aimed at delivering regulatory support for the fleet. It has also secured a comprehensive US$1 billion-plus global settlement with parent FirstEnergy Corp. less than five months into the Chapter 11 cases, eliminating the threat of years of protracted litigation, and it sold certain noncore assets.
• Counseled the ad hoc senior secured lenders of Jack Cooper Holdings Corp. in its out-of-court restructuring exchange transaction that resulted in the retirement of US$492.2 million of the company’s outstanding debt.

Affiliations:

• Co-Chair of the Executive Committee of the Bankruptcy and Reorganization Division of United Jewish Federation of New York.
• Member, Dean’s Advisory Board for Boston University School of Law.
• Member, board of directors, American Bankruptcy Institute.
• Fellow, American College of Bankruptcy.
• Leadership Council, Tina’s Wish Foundation.

Education:

• J.D., Boston University School of Law, 1989
• M.B.A., University of Texas at Austin, 1986
• B.A., University of Chicago, with honors, 1984

Bar Admissions:

• District of Columbia
• New Jersey
• New York