Professional Experience
For more than forty-five years, Mr. Blum has concentrated his law practice exclusively in the area of bankruptcy and insolvency law as lead counsel in numerous high profile bankruptcy and reorganization cases throughout the country. His advocacy has included representation of secured, unsecured and partially secured institutional and other creditors; creditors’ committees; equity committees; debtors seeking to restructure debt and/or equity; trustees; and special interests. Industries served include: banking, finance, mortgage, and construction loans, shipping, airline, electric utility, manufacturing, real estate, hotel, condominium associations, retail chains and investment groups.

Experience covers all aspects of Bankruptcy, reorganization in Chapter 11, prosecution and defense of avoidance and recovery of preferences, fraudulent conveyances, corporate governance issues, invalidating voidable liens and encumbrances, contested voting and proxy balloting within the bankruptcy process. His concentration in Chapter 11 and insolvency cases includes debt and equity restructuring and exchanges in pre-packaged, consensual, and cram down reorganization plans.

Mr. Blum is experienced in: 1) plan funding through institutional banking and Wall Street private banking sources and through sale, acquisition and merger; 2) strategizing and planning bankruptcy litigation tactics and implementation and includes pretrial and trial presentation of economic data and other evidence through fact and expert witnesses; 3) contests involving classification of claims and interests, voting and proxy contests in corporate governance matters involving publicly owned Chapter 11 debtors and appeals.

Representations in Reorganization Cases
Mr. Blum has been actively engaged in more than 600 bankruptcy, reorganization and restructuring cases. Some of the more notable cases are described below:

• Lead debt restructuring bankruptcy counsel in 2011, for developer of 212 completed, upscale, residential condominium units located in Alabama on the Gulf of Mexico, with respect to a $175 million dollar multi-bank funded construction mortgage loan, in default beyond the term of an expired forbearance agreement, without need for court protection.
  
  
• Lead bankruptcy counsel August, 2009 through December, 2010, for major international lien general contractor in a Florida Chapter 11, case involving 847 condominium units in two high rise residential and commercial buildings in Miami, Florida.

• Representations in WCI Communities; Holly Hill 1 Associates, Ltd.; and Resort at Singer Island; Chapter 11 cases pending in the Delaware Bankruptcy Court.

• Originator and lead Bankruptcy Counsel for the unofficial and Official Unsecured Creditors’ Committee in the reorganization case filed by Conseco Finance Corp., Conseco Finance Servicing Corp. and their respective subsidiaries in Chicago, Illinois.
  
  
• Bankruptcy Counsel for a Washington D.C. Institutional Indenture Trustee. The case involved over a billion dollar bond issue secured by defaulted real property mortgages and deeds of trust on real property located in Texas and Oklahoma.
  
  
• Bankruptcy Counsel for City Investing Company (NYSE) in the supervision and filing of Sambo’s Restaurants Chapter 11 case in Los Angeles, California.
  
  
• Bankruptcy Counsel in the WT Grant bankruptcy reorganization. Representation was for the largest group of shopping center lessors.
  
  
• Counsel to Peabody Coal (NYSE) as a potential acquirer of Lionel assets, involving a sale without a reorganization plan in place. Issues were litigated and ultimately decided by the United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit in a landmark decision involving bankruptcy jurisprudence.
  
  
• Bankruptcy counsel for Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company (A&P) in large supermarket Chapter 11 cases filed in New York.  A&P sought to purchase long term leases in bankruptcy sponsored sales. A&P representation also included defense of A&P retaining a long term leasehold in Westchester County, New York when the debtor landlord sought to reject and terminate the leasehold and capture the building and improvements funded by client.
  
  
• Bankruptcy counsel to Chase and Sanborn Coffee Company in a Chapter 11 debtor case. Mr. Blum successfully confirmed a plan of reorganization for the debtor in Bankruptcy Court Miami, Florida.
  
  
• Lead counsel in a publicly owned and traded catalog showroom debtor case with multiple operations in southern states. Case was filed by Mr. Blum in Columbia, South Carolina.
  
  
• Counsel to substantial secured creditor in the Sea Pines (South Carolina) and related Chapter 11 cases.
  
  
• Bankruptcy counsel for Horn & Hardard Company (AMEX) servicing its mail order business (Hanover House et. al.) and fast food chain operations on the east coast.
  
  
• Counsel to Conoco in Texaco Chapter 11 Chapter 11 case filed in New York.
  
  
• Bankruptcy counsel to Crown American Corporation, a mall developer and operator in Pennsylvania.
  
  
• Special bankruptcy counsel to Massachusetts Municipal Wholesale Electric Company (“MMWEC”), a political subdivisions of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, in a Bangor Maine filed Chapter 11, cooperative electric utility case from 1989 to 1995.
  
  
• Counsel to the Equity Committee in Allegheny International Corp. Pittsburgh, PA with multi-billion dollars in debt. The case produced the first successful stock proxy  contest waged in Chapter 11 and required multiple appeals to the United States Third Circuit Court of Appeals. Debtor was the principal shareholder of Sunbeam and Oster appliances etc.
  
  
• Debtors’ counsel for general and limited partnerships operating throughout the United States, including hotel properties at JFK Airport in New York and in NYC, during the economic downturn and consolidation of involving the savings and loan industry - 1984-1990 which resulted in owners, developers and mortgagors disabled in their attempt to locate and obtain refinancing of existing mortgage debt from banks and insurance companies.
  
  
• Special bankruptcy counsel for Flight International, Inc., a publicly owned and traded (OTC), fixed based operator and Lear Jet maintenance facility located on the grounds of the Newport News, Virginia Airport. The reorganization plan confirmed by the Bankruptcy Court permitted an exchange of debt to equity without significant loss of net operating loss carry backs and carry forwards, which the reorganized debtor thereafter utilized to shelter future profits and fund operations.
  
  
• Lead bankruptcy counsel for the Official Equity Security Holders’ Committee in 65 complex Chapter 11 cases administered under the name Prime Motor Inns, (NYSE), filed in Miami. Florida. The cases involved roll-up of multiple hotel chains and hotel properties located throughout the United States and in the Caribbean.
  
  
• Special bankruptcy counsel in 2001-2002 in four Chapter 11 debtor cases involving real property destroyed by Hurricane Andrew in 1992. After the state court’s unsuccessful attempts to resolve multiple claims to the real property and clear title issues. Mr. Blum adopted a strategy and implemented and confirmed a reorganization plan to cure title issues of thousands of tenants in common, as owners of real property together with a plan to sell and convey the property to a third party in a bankruptcy court sponsored sale with distributions to former owners.

Court Admissions
United States District Courts Southern and Eastern Districts of New York;
United States District Court of Appeals, Second and Sixth Circuits;
Bankruptcy Courts (pro hac vice admission)

Bar Admissions
New York

Education
New York Law School
New York University