Managing Partner
Danning, Gill, Israel & Kransoff, LLP
Eric Israel has been a lawyer and advisor for more than 40 years in Los Angeles for debtors, trustees, creditors, creditor committees, and shareholders in complex bankruptcy and workout scenarios. Clients seek Israel’s counsel for bankruptcy, workouts, debtor-creditor litigation, exemption planning, and business reorganizations. Israel is also a certified mediator through the Straus Institute for Dispute Resolution. He has served on the panel of mediators for the bankruptcy courts in the Central District of California since the panel’s inception in 1998.
Recently, he represented the Chapter 11 trustee for the estate of HVI Cat Canyon, Inc., which owned approximately 1,000 oil wells, most of which were idle or not performing. Although the company had a long history of regulatory issues, the trustee was able to sell the oil and gas assets for $26.8 million. Â
Member
Mintz
A first generation college graduate and professional, Mintz member Abby O’Brient has displayed her legal acumen to clients from very early in her career. Starting as an associate in Mintz’s Bankruptcy and Restructuring group in 2009 and elevated to partner in 2019, O’Brient has risen to the top in the high-demand male-dominated commercial bankruptcy practice due to her ability to lead successful trial teams and guide buyers in distressed transactions.
O’Brient maintains a wide-ranging insolvency and litigation practice, representing secured and unsecured creditors in bankruptcy cases and other insolvency proceedings, purchasers and sellers of distressed assets, bankruptcy trustees and receivers. She led the Mintz team defending six real estate investment companies in litigation filed by Stillwater Liquidating LLC. Â
Partner
Pachulski Stang Ziehl & Jones LLP
Malhar Pagay is a business lawyer whose practice focuses on the development and implementation of strategic alternatives for and against distressed businesses. He has substantial experience representing chapter 11 debtors, trustees, unsecured creditors, creditors’ committees, and other parties in the contexts of bankruptcy cases, adversary proceedings, commercial litigation, mediations, domestic and international business transactions, business reorganizations, and out-of-court corporate restructurings of debt. He has broad industry experience, including healthcare and life sciences, real estate, technology, retail, manufacturing, transportation, sports, and entertainment.
Recent representations include reorganizing the Ruby Tuesday casual-dining chain with over 200 restaurants through a debt-for-equity transaction with its secured lenders.Â
Partner
Raines Feldman
Hamid R. Rafatjoo has over 25 years of experience representing clients in complex transactions and reorganizations throughout the United States. He counsels companies and individuals in a variety of industries, including healthcare, retail, restaurant, manufacturing, entertainment, real estate, and hospitality. He has represented entrepreneurs, small family owned businesses as well as companies with over a billion in revenue. Some of the many bankruptcies on which Rafatjoo has worked include representing the unsecured creditors committee of Penthouse Global Media, Inc. and Michael Avenatti’s law firm in various bankruptcy matters.
Rafatjoo advises clients on a wide array of matters including business formation and corporate restructuring, debt and equity transactions and workouts, acquisitions and sales, and structuring and amending key contracts.
