Turning the Page to the Next Chapter: Individual Chapter 11 Cases

Jeffrey C. Toole is a shareholder with Buckley King in Cleveland, where he focuses his practice on business restructuring, finance, insolvency and commercial law matters. He has more than 30 years’ experience representing debtors, secured lenders, official committees, asset-buyers and other major stakeholders in chapter 11 reorganizations, loan workouts, asset-based lending, transactional settings, commercial litigation and receiverships.

Mr. Toole has written articles on a wide variety of topics, such as UCC Article 9 pitfalls, the intersection between bankruptcy law and receiverships, pre-filing considerations for individuals seeking chapter 11 protection, risks that departing practitioners can face if their law firms dissolve precipitously, and credit-bidding in ? 363 bankruptcy sales.

A frequent lecturer and panelist, he has spoken about officers’ and directors’ fiduciary duties in financially distressed for-profit and nonprofit companies, strategies to work out troubled loans from businesses’ and lenders’ perspectives, unusual preferential and fraudulent transfer problems, and other subjects for numerous organizations, including ABI, the Ohio State Bar Association and the Cleveland Metropolitan Bar Association.

Mr. Toole has been listed in The Best Lawyers in America for Banking and Finance Law, Commercial Transactions/UCC Law, Bankruptcy and Creditor Debtor Rights/Insolvency and Reorganization Law, and Bankruptcy Litigation, and has been named an Ohio Super Lawyer for many years.

He received his undergraduate degree summa cum laude from Kenyon College and his J.D. cum laude from Cornell Law School.

Hon. Lori S. Simpson is a U.S. Bankruptcy Judge for the District of Maryland in Baltimore, appointed in September 2016. Previously, she was the principal of the Simpson Law Group in Baltimore and represented individuals and business in a variety of legal matters, including bankruptcy, workouts and business litigation. She also served on the chapter 7 trustee panel for the Maryland Bankruptcy Court from 1997 until her appointment in 2016.

Judge Simpson is a member of the National Association of Bankruptcy Trustees, the Maryland State Bar Association, the District of Columbia Bar, the Bankruptcy Bar Association, the International Women’s Insolvency and Restructuring Confederation and the Anne Arundel County Bar Association.

She is a past director of the Bankruptcy Bar Association, and was active in the Women’s Bar Association. Judge Simpson has provided free fiscal educational services to teens and young adults via high school and university programs.

She received her B.A. from James Madison University and her J.D. from the University of Baltimore.

Chantelle McClamb concentrates on bankruptcy law and business reorganizations, including creditors' rights and preference defense. She represents creditors and assignees in actions filed in the Delaware Court of Chancery. Chantelle represents creditors' committees, debtors, and individual creditors in Chapter 11 cases and liquidating trustees in the post-confirmation wind down of Chapter 11 cases and prosecution of preference actions.