Philip Martino concentrates his practice in commercial bankruptcy litigation. Since January 1990, Mr. Martino has been a member of the panel of bankruptcy trustees for the Northern District of Illinois. As trustee and attorney for the trustee, he has been involved in virtually all aspects of Chapter 11 and Chapter 7 bankruptcies, especially in selling assets of all types.

Mr. Martino has represented national and regional banks and financial institutions as secured, undersecured and unsecured creditors in all types of workouts, both in and out of court. These representations have included manufacturing facilities (with real, personal and intellectual property), distribution centers and all types of real estate.

Mr. Martino has extensive experience in single-asset real estate bankruptcies, having represented lenders, developers and lien holders. He successfully defended the largest former shareholders against federal and state fraudulent conveyance actions brought by the debtor in bankruptcy litigation involving the leveraged buy out of a large chain of department stores. Mr. Martino also has successfully defeated a number of attempts to subject insurance insolvency proceedings to the jurisdiction of the federal bankruptcy courts.

Mr. Martino has represented a number of franchisors in connection with franchisee bankruptcies. The issues raised in those cases include the enforceability of arbitration agreements, covenants not to compete and jury waiver clauses; the rejection of franchise agreements; the assumability and assignability of franchise agreements; whether a franchise agreement and corresponding real estate and equipment leases must be treated as a single contract; and whether equipment leases are legally leases or are disguised sales.

Mr. Martino has spoken on various bankruptcy and litigation issues at seminars presented by the Illinois Institute of Continuing Legal Education, the Chicago Bar Association (Foreign Investment in Real Property Sub-Committee and the Real Property Finance Sub-Committee) and the American Bar Association Forum on Franchising as well as by for-profit companies.