HomeHon. James M. Peck

Expert resume of Hon. James M. Peck

Head of Cross Border Restructuring Practice, Morrison & Foerster LLP

Judge Peck served as a United States Bankruptcy Judge for the Southern District of New York from 2006 to 2014 and presided over the chapter 11 and SIPA cases of Lehman Brothers and its affiliates, constituting the largest bankruptcy filing in U.S. history. Other notable matters over which Judge Peck presided include the chapter 11 cases of Iridium, Quebecor, Charter Communications, Extended Stay Hotels, and ION Media and the chapter 15 case of Japan Airlines. Judge Peck also brokered settlements in a number of high-profile cases including American Airlines, Syms/Filenes, MF Global, General Motors, Residential Capital, and Excel Maritime.

By invitation, Judge Peck is a fellow of the American College of Bankruptcy and serves as President of the International Insolvency Institute. Also by invitation, he is a member of the expert panel of the Panel of Recognized International Market Experts in Finance (P.R.I.M.E.). From 2007 to 2010, Judge Peck served on the National Conference of Bankruptcy Judges (NCBJ) Board of Governors as Second Circuit Governor and was judicial chair of the American Bankruptcy Institute’s annual New York City Bankruptcy Conference. He served on NCBJ’s Education Committee and Finance Committee and in 2012 was elected as an at-large member of NCBJ’s Board of Governors. Judge Peck has served as co-chair of the ABI’s Advisory Committee on the Safe Harbors and is a member of The World Bank’s Task Force on Insolvency and Creditor/Debtor Regimes.

Judge Peck is a frequent speaker on insolvency issues, and has participated in conferences across the globe presented by the NCBJ, the American Bankruptcy Institute, the American College of Bankruptcy, the American Bar Association, the Association of Insolvency & Restructuring Advisors, the Commercial Law League of America, the Turnaround Management Association, the New York Institute of Credit, the International Insolvency Institute, INSOL Europe, INSOL International, the International Bar Association, the Law Council of Australia, the Law Society of Singapore, and numerous law schools. He gave the keynote address at the INSOL Europe Congress in Venice in 2012, and in 2013 was asked to speak at the resolution planning conference of The Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve and at The World Bank’s Law, Justice, and Development Week. Judge Peck is an adjunct professor of finance at New York University’s Stern School of Business. He is also an accredited member of the Singapore Mediation Center’s Panel of Principal Mediators and has been appointed to the Singapore International Mediation Center Panel of Mediators.

Judge Peck has participated in a variety of international judicial education programs including events sponsored by the United States Department of Commerce (Bahrain, October 2008), the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit (visiting judges from the People’s Republic of China, March 2010), the National Judicial Institute of Canada (Toronto, 2011 and Vancouver, 2012), and UNCITRAL (The Hague and Grand Cayman, 2013). He was a member of INSOL International’s Judicial Steering Committee that planned the Judicial Colloquium that took place at The Hague in May 2013.

Before his appointment, Judge Peck was in private practice for over 35 years, concentrating for much of that time on bankruptcy law, business reorganization, and creditors’ rights. He was a partner in the reorganization and finance section of Duane Morris LLP and co-head of the business reorganization department of Schulte Roth & Zabel LLP.