Banking and Bankruptcy

Edward A. Phillips is a managing director based in Philadelphia. With over 25 years of experience in finding solutions to problems in restructuring, insolvency, liquidation, and forensic accounting matters. Ed has represented a various parties (debtors, creditors and investors) and held a number of management and advisory roles in bankruptcy proceedings, out-of-court restructurings, and post-confirmation engagements.

In addition to his advisory work with distressed companies, he has assisted Chapter 11 creditors’ committees and secured lenders across a wide range of industries. He has served as a Chief Restructuring Officer, post-confirmation trustee, Chapter 11 trustee, elected Chapter 7 trustee, and receiver in multiple federal jurisdictions and the Delaware Chancery Court. Ed has provided acquisition due diligence services to buyers of distressed assets. He has testified on numerous occasions on avoidance actions, cash collateral disputes, plan feasibility, fraud and other financial matters in dispute.

Ed was a principal author of The Chief Restructuring Officer’s Guide to Bankruptcy published by the American Bankruptcy Institute. He has spoken before professional and trade groups on troubled company issues, preference and fraudulent conveyance actions, and financial statement analysis. He is a certified public accountant (CPA) and a certified turnaround professional (CTP). Ed’ s credentials also include certified insolvency & restructuring advisor (CIRA) and certified fraud examiner (CFE). He belongs to the Turnaround Management Association where he is the past President of the Philadelphia/Wilmington Chapter and currently serves on the executive committee of TMA Global. He is also a member of the Association of Insolvency & Restructuring Advisors, the American Bankruptcy Institute, the association of Certified Fraud Examiners, the American and Pennsylvania Institutes of Certified Public Accountants.

Ed holds a bachelor of science in business administration from The Ohio State University where he majored in finance.

Mr. Gittelman is the Chief Practice Counsel for PNC Bank, National Association and is based in their Philadelphia market. He is primarily responsible for providing legal services for PNC Bank's troubled loan portfolio.

Prior to joining PNC Bank in 1992, Mr. Gittelman practiced at Blank, Rome, LLP in Philadelphia. He is also a member of the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, District of Columbia and American Bar Associations and served as Vice-Chair of the Electronic Transactions in Bankruptcy Subcommittee of the Business Bankruptcy Committee of the ABA Business Law Section and lectures frequently on bankruptcy and UCC issues. He also serves on the Board of Directors of the Support Center for Child Advocates in Philadelphia.

Mr. Gittelman received his J.D. from the Cornell Law School in 1984 and his B.A cum laude from Georgetown University in 1981.

Lisa Bittle Tancredi is a bankruptcy and creditors’ rights partner working from the firm’s Baltimore and Wilmington, Delaware, offices. Lisa represents a spectrum of clients, including corporations, national banks, community banks, institutions, funds, investors, sureties, high-net-worth individuals and lenders, both inside and outside of the bankruptcy court. In the syndicated loan arena, she works with agents and participating lenders to address distressed debt facilities.

Lisa is a past President of the Bankruptcy Bar Association for the District of Maryland (2014-2015) and a former chair of the Maryland Local Rules Committee (2013-2016). Lisa served as a reporter of bankruptcy cases in the Fourth Circuit for the American Bankruptcy Institute (ABI) and was co-chair of the ABI’s Employee Benefits Committee. She frequently lectures and gives seminars to local and national groups, and she has published several articles.

Lisa earned a B.S. in mechanical engineering from Virginia Tech, cum laude, where she was a member of sorority Kappa Alpha Theta and the Pi Tau Sigma and Tau Beta Pi engineering honor societies. After a brief stint working as a mechanical engineer, Lisa turned to the law. She graduated from the University of Maryland School of Law where she was awarded the American Jurisprudence Awards for Legal Writing and Commercial Paper, the Arnold Bridgewater Prize, and inducted into the Order of the Coif. During law school, Lisa clerked for the Office of the United States Trustee in Baltimore, a component of the Department of Justice responsible for overseeing the administration of bankruptcy cases, and it was during that clerkship that she acquired her affinity for bankruptcy law. Following law school, Lisa served a judicial clerkship for the Honorable James F. Schneider of the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Maryland.