Howard P. Magaliff

My primary objective is to protect my clients' business and legal interests. My expertise includes strategic mediation and arbitration, which makes my clients happy because it protects their interests while saving them time and money. As a consultant to distressed companies, I help my clients maximize recovery and return to profitability. Advising clients as they emerge from a temporary setback, I outline the legal rights, obligations and options for proceeding and we collaborate on a strategy to reposition and renew the company's performance going forward.

My practice encompasses all facets of bankruptcy and restructuring. Clients and lawyers routinely bring me into cases that have stalled at a critical juncture because I have a track record of concluding matters efficiently and favorably. I am a commercial litigator with extensive first chair trial experience in federal district and state courts in a broad range of commercial and business matters including insurance, construction, tax certiorari, mortgage foreclosure, piercing the corporate veil, business torts, breach of fiduciary duties, professional malpractice and business entity dissolution. In bankruptcy court, I have litigated the settlement payment safe harbor for securities transactions, substantive consolidation, the applicability of the automatic stay to federal agencies, unfinished business claims of a dissolved law firm and challenges to professional fees. I also handle appeals and have written the winning briefs for several landmark cases decided by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals.

I have represented domestic and international companies in a broad range of industries including the automotive, housing, real estate, energy, lumber, healthcare, restaurant, retail and electronics industries, and served as debtor's counsel in some of the largest and most well known cases including Enron, Chrysler, General Motors, NRG Energy, Allegiance Telecom, Ames Department Stores, Loehmann's, Guilford Mills, St. Vincent's Catholic Medical Centers, Frontier Airlines, Daewoo International (America) Corp., Delphi and Tower Automotive. I have also represented creditor and equity security holder committees. I am a chapter 7 panel trustee in the Southern District of New York, and am regularly hired as special litigation counsel to other trustees. Before private practice, I worked as legislative counsel for a New York State senator and was associate general counsel for a regional bank. Prior to forming Rich Michaelson Magaliff, LLP, I was a founding member of another boutique bankruptcy and commercial litigation firm. I enjoy teaching and I was on the faculty of the American Bankers' Association. I also lecture for professional associations and continuing education programs.

I am admitted to practice in New York and Connecticut, as well as in the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York, the District of Connecticut, the Eastern and Western Districts of Michigan and the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. This gives me optimum flexibility to help my clients in the most appropriate venue. I am a member of the American Bankruptcy Institute and the New York American Inn of Court. I received a B.A. in 1981 from Binghamton University and a J.D. in 1984 from Boston University School of Law.

Outside of the office, I served on the board of directors of the Rosenthal JCC of Northern Westchester and Maimonides Academy of Western Connecticut. I live with my wife and family in Ridgefield, Connecticut.