Michael B Lubic

Practice Areas

Michael Lubic is a partner in the firm’s Los Angeles and San Francisco offices. He has a broad insolvency practice encompassing litigation, transactions, and counseling in connection with troubled businesses, distressed assets, and complicated commercial frauds. His areas of industry focus include automotive, aviation, aviation services, energy, franchise and distribution, healthcare, hospitality, insurance, real estate, and retail. He has a national practice representing lenders to auto dealers. He is a skilled mediator and frequently mediates bankruptcy and other complex commercial disputes.

Michael’s practice in the areas of insolvency, bankruptcy, creditors’ rights and remedies, and transactions involving troubled companies is divided between “in court” work and “out of court” work. The “in court” practice involves representing parties — including debtors, secured and unsecured lenders, trade creditors, creditors’ committees, acquirers, and trustees — in connection with bankruptcy cases, as well as representing creditors and debtors in connection with state and federal court proceedings involving creditors’ rights and remedies. His work in bankruptcy cases generally involves Chapter 11 business reorganizations, although he is also experienced in Chapter 7 liquidations and Chapter 13 adjustment of debts. He has represented significant creditors in no less than five Chapter 9 municipal bankruptcy cases, including the representation of CalPers in the City of San Bernardino and City of Stockton cases. Bankruptcy work includes litigation involving cash collateral, adequate protection, relief from the automatic stay, preferences, fraudulent transfers, dischargeability of indebtedness, and disclosure statement and plan confirmation issues. Other federal and state court work generally involves representing creditors, including victims of fraud and white collar crime, in collecting money or recovering assets. This work also includes issues related to prejudgment remedies, enforcement of judgments, and receiverships.

Michael’s “out of court” work includes counseling debtors and creditors in "work out" situations; mergers and acquisitions involving troubled companies or distressed assets, including the change of ownership of operating businesses through general assignments for the benefit of creditors; counseling businesses in difficult and crisis situations; business planning and structuring transactions to minimize future insolvency-related risks (particularly technology transactions, IP licenses, and supply chain transactions involving vendors of critical goods and services); representing both borrowers and lenders in connection with structured finance transactions and bankruptcy remote entities; and counseling boards of directors and companies in connection with distressed situations and the orderly winding up of businesses, including through general assignments for the benefit of creditors.

Professional Memberships

State Bar of California

American Bar Association (Section on Corporate, Banking, and Business Law)

American Bankruptcy Institute

Turnaround Management Association

Los Angeles County Bar Association (Member, Subcommittee on Bankruptcy Law, 1990-1993, 1999-present)

Financial Lawyers Conference

Los Angeles Bankruptcy Forum (Member, Board of Directors, 2011-2015)

California Bankruptcy Forum, Education Co-chair 2015

California Receivers Forum

Alzheimer’s Association, California Southland Chapter (Member, Board of Directors, 2006-2010; Chair, Governance Committee, 2008-2009; Chair, Audit Committee, 2009-2010)

National Center for Science Education (Member, National Legal Advisory Panel, 2000-present)

University of Chicago Graduate School of Business Club of Southern California (Secretary, 1987-1990)

Publications

“Contractors’ Joint-check Agreements: Use at your Peril,” American Bankruptcy Institute Journal, Vol. XX, No. 2, March 2001 by Michael B. Lubic and Jennifer Phelps

“Creditors’ Rights and Remedies in Environmental Cases,” California Environmental Law & Remediation, August 1998

“Bankruptcy and Reorganization,” Chapter 24 to Energy Law and Transactions, Matthew–Bender, by Michael B. Lubic, Cherie Erickson Harris, and Wendell Adair, 1990

“Bankruptcy in the Natural Gas Industry,” Chapter 33 to Regulation of the Gas Industry, Matthew–Bender, by Michael B. Lubic, Cherie Erickson Harris, and Wendell Adair, 1989

Education