Chicago Office
300 N. LaSalle Street Suite 4000
Chicago,
Illinois
60654
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Professional Experience
Christopher Combest practices in the Firm’s Bankruptcy and Creditors’ Rights Group. His practice includes work for secured and unsecured creditors, commercial landlords and property managers, purchasers of assets out of bankruptcy estates, debtors in bankruptcy, trustees, and assignees for the benefit of creditors. His experience includes:
- Representation of chapter 11 debtor clients Renew Energy, LLC; Help at Home, Inc.; Statewide Healthcare Services, Inc.; Allied Products Corporation; and Gateway HomeCare, Inc. (local counsel).
- Representation of federal equity Receiver for insolvent investment firm Wealth Management LLC and its six investment funds.
- Representation of suppliers and equipment lessors in bankruptcies of automotive suppliers and with respect to sales of clients’ bankruptcy claims.
- Representation of commercial landlords in numerous bankruptcies of retailers.
- Representation of one of the nation’s largest food distributors in bankruptcies of franchised restaurants, including experience with the Perishable Agricultural Commodities Act and with the treatment of supply contracts in bankruptcy.
- Representation of committee of members of a chapter 11 debtor generation-and-transmission power cooperative in Louisiana.
- Representation of equity in chapter 11 case of debtor aquarium located in San Francisco; drafted plan and disclosure statement and consummated transfer of assets out of estate.
Education and Honors
- Yale Law School (J.D., 1994)
- University of Washington (Seattle) (M.F.A., 1985)
- Yale College (B.A., summa cum laude, 1982)
Phi Beta Kappa.
Bar Admissions
Illinois,
1994
Court Admissions
U.S. Court of Appeals, 7th Circuit, 2010
U.S. District Court, Western District of Michigan, 2010
U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Wisconsin, 2010
U.S. District Court, Western District of Wisconsin, 2009
U.S. District Court, Central District of Illinois, 2006
U.S. Court of Appeals, 5th Circuit, 1998
U.S. District Court, Northern District of Illinois, 1995
Professional and Civic Activities
- American Bar Association (Member and vice-chair of Executory Contracts Subcommittee of ABA’s Business Bankruptcy Committee).
- Chicago Bar Association (Member).
- Speaking engagements include presentations to the National Conference of Bankruptcy Judges, the Business Bankruptcy Committee of the American Bar Association, the Turnaround Management Association, the Diocesan Fiscal Management Conference and the American Association of Attorney-Certified Public Accountants.
Selected Presentations/Publications
- Co-author (with Faye Feinstein), “Seventh Circuit Holds Equity Receivers Not Found by State Law Priorities in Liquidating Hedge Funds,” BNA: Bankruptcy Law Reporter, 2011.
- Moderator and Program Chair, “Unsure At any Speed: Understanding the Rights and Obligations of Suppliers and Other Parties to Contracts with Troubled Companies – Lessons from the Auto Industry,” Spring Meeting of the American Bar Association’s Business Bankruptcy Committee, April 22, 2010.
- Panelist, “A Simulated Multi-Party Mediation of a Chapter 11 Dispute Arising from (i) a Leveraged-Lease of a Las Vegas Casino and (ii) the Operation of the Claims Limitation Under Section 502(b)(6),” Fall Meeting of the American Bar Association's Business Bankruptcy Committee, October 19, 2009.
- Presenter, “Leases and Executory Contracts Under the United States Bankruptcy Code,” Annual Meeting of the Oregon State Bar Association's Debtor-Creditor Section, October 9, 2009.
- “General Growth: Reality Check for Real-Estate Finance Industry?,” Dow Jones Small Cap Report (with Faye Feinstein), September 9, 2009.
- “How Secure Is That Lease?,” Business Law Today, November/December 2006, at 11.
- Moderator and Panelist, When Letter-of-Credit Law and the Bankruptcy Code Meet: What Attorneys Need to Know, Live CLE Teleconference sponsored by American Bar Association and Business Law Today.
- “Court Puts Leaseholds at Risk in Section 363 Sales,” Journal of Corporate Renewal, December 2004, at 10 (w/M.R. Cohen & F.B. Feinstein).
- “Bankruptcy Concepts Relevant to Commercial Leases,” Chapter 40 of Negotiating Commercial Leases (Practising Law Institute, Fall 2004, Real Estate Law and Practice Course Handbook No. N-508, vol. 2), at 759-804 (w/F.B. Feinstein).
- “Employee Insurance: Bedeviling a Turnaround,” Renaissance (published by Morris Anderson & Associates Ltd.), April 2004, at 1 (w/F.B. Feinstein).
- “Real Estate in Bankruptcy,” Chapter 16 in Volume II of the Illinois Institute for Continuing Legal Education's handbook, Basic Real Estate Practice (IICLE 1995) (w/M.R. Cohen and M.M. Eidelman) and the 1998 Supplement thereto (sole author).
- “Know Your Adversary: Landlord Rights in Tenant Bankruptcies,” Journal of Corporate Renewal, September 1997, at 14 (w/F.B. Feinstein).
- “Bankruptcy and Limited Liability Entities,” The Practical Lawyer, April 1996, at 61 (Part 1), and June 1996, at 77 (Part 2) (both Parts w/M.R. Cohen).
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