Jim is a nationally recognized bankruptcy lawyer with extensive experience representing financially stressed businesses or their creditors bringing to bear his experience in bankruptcy and workouts, debtor-creditor law, business transactions and litigation to help those clients.
He has counseled and represented thousands of businesses in challenging financial circumstances in over 50 years of practice, and is adept at developing creative solutions to difficult problems. He was lead attorney for a Turnaround Management Association’s National Transaction of the Year in 2009 and again in 2016 and for the TMA Minnesota Chapter’s Transactions of the Year in 2006, 2010 and 2016. Nominated by his peers, he became a fellow of the American College of Bankruptcy in 1997, and is a national leader in that organization.
Jim chaired the committee that drafted Minnesota’s comprehensive new statute covering receiverships and assignments for the benefit of creditors that became effective August 1, 2012. He has been listed in all editions of The Best Lawyers in America since it started in 1989 and selected by his peers as a Best Lawyers’ 2014 “Lawyer of the Year” in Minneapolis Bankruptcy and Creditor-Debtor Rights/Insolvency and Reorganization Law. He has also been included in all listings of Minnesota Super Lawyers and is designated a “Top 100 Attorney” in 2016 and many prior years and a 2015 “Top 20 Attorney.” Jim is also an active speaker for continuing legal education programs both locally and nationally.
Jim is very active in bar leadership and pro bono legal activities, and has received national honors for his work, including the first national pro bono award given by the American Bar Association. He has served as president of the 7,500-member Hennepin County Bar Association and as president of the 15,000-member Minnesota State Bar Association. He is an active member of the Minnesota State Bar Association, the American Bar Association and the Turnaround Management Association, among others. He is currently on the editorial board of The Business Lawyer, the law review of the Section of Business Law of the American Bar Association. He is Vice President of the American College of Bankruptcy. He is an Adjunct Professor at the University of Minnesota Law School.
