RICHARD F. LEVY, Partner Professional Activities Chicago Office Office: (312) 923-2648 Fax: (312) 923-2748 Email: rlevy@jenner.com  Add to Outlook Contacts

Richard F. Levy is a partner in the Firm's Litigation Department.  He is a member of the Complex Commercial Litigation and the Bankruptcy Litigation Practices.  A preeminent corporate attorney, his practice has focused for more than 30 years on corporate reorganization, debt restructuring, bankruptcy litigation, bank regulation and corporate transactions and governance.  Mr. Levy is AV Peer Review Rated, Martindale-Hubbell's highest peer recognition for ethical standards and legal ability.

Mr. Levy’s recent clients include a number of money center and regional banks and Real Estate Investment Trusts.  He is a director of several companies, including two bank holding companies, and has been a director of a $3 billion international copier distribution company, a major healthcare company and a large REIT whose shares were traded on the New York Stock Exchange.  He has recently been successful on behalf of an Equity Committee in major litigation in the Delaware Bankruptcy Court, defeating the plans of large institutional note holders to wipe out the interests of shareholders.

He began his insolvency practice in 1973, when he represented a debtor in the largest individual Chapter 11 proceeding filed to that date, involving the ultimately successful reorganization of some $500 million in debt.  Since then, he has been involved as lead counsel in hundreds of major insolvency matters, in and out of court, including the reorganization of Senior Corp., a $1 billion REIT, Continental Bank, Hawkeye Bancorporation, a 36-bank, $2 billion Iowa bank holding company, Danka Business Systems plc., Ventas and Vencor and numerous others.

In 1961, Mr. Levy argued Radiant Burners v. Peoples Gas, Light & Coke Company, 364 U.S. 656, before the United States Supreme Court.  He has argued and tried numerous cases as principal attorney in the United States Courts of Appeals for the Second, Fifth, Seventh and Eighth U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeal.  Mr. Levy has argued significant legal issues in state and federal trial courts as well as in bankruptcy courts in Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Denver, Grand Rapids, Houston, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, Minneapolis, New Orleans, New Jersey, New York, Phoenix, San Bernardino, San Diego and San Francisco.

Mr. Levy’s practice became global during the late 1990s, when he served as principal counsel for the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, the National Bank of Yugoslavia and several commercial banks in Serbia and Montenegro, in connection with the workout of the once intact Balkan country’s $7 billion sovereign commercial debt.

From 1961 to 1985, Mr. Levy was the name partner in Levy and Erens, a firm he founded.  He joined Kirkland & Ellis in 1985 and was the partner in charge of its workout, bankruptcy litigation and reorganization practice until 1997, when he joined Altheimer & Gray.

His legal career has been featured in such leading publications as The Wall Street Journal and The National Law Journal.  He has been a lecturer on bankruptcy issues for the Practice Law Institute, ALI-ABA and the Illinois State and Chicago Bar Associations.

Mr. Levy graduated from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in 1951 and from Columbia Law School in 1954.  He is admitted to practice in Illinois, California (inactive) and New York, the Supreme Court of the United States (where he argued and won a major antitrust case) and Federal Appellate, District and Bankruptcy Courts throughout the United States.