Jonathan Friedland is a partner in Levenfeld Pearlstein’s Corporate Practice Group and he leads the firm’s Restructuring & Insolvency Service Group.
Mr. Friedland’s corporate practice includes serving as outside general counsel to several financial sound clients and a robust practice representing strategic and financial (private equity funds) buyers and sellers of assets, particularly distressed assets. The wide range of issues he advises clients on include: fiduciary duties; structuring issues; credit negotiations; and buy/sell transactions. Mr. Friedland is the editor of A Comparison Shopping Guide for 363 Sales, a 250 page treatise published by the American Bankruptcy Institute.
Mr. Friedland’s litigation practice emphasizes representing business owners in disputes and bankruptcy litigation (including involuntary, preference, fraudulent conveyance, equitable subordination, substantive consolidation, and confirmation issues). Mr. Friedland is lead author of Commercial Bankruptcy Litigation, a 1500 page treatise published by West.
Mr. Friedland has extensive experience in guiding companies and their constituents through a variety of financially challenging situations. He has represented debtors, official and ad hoc creditor committees, and other stakeholders in bankruptcy cases, assignments for the benefit of creditors, receiverships, and out-of-court workouts. He is principal author of Strategic Alternatives for Distressed Businesses, an 1100 page treatise published by West and is an author of Chapter 11-101, a 400 page treatise published by the ABI.
Mr. Friedland began his career representing small businesses and their owners in very difficult financial situations. His matters grew in size over the years to include $1 billion revenue companies. His chapter 11 debtor representations have included: Hydraulic Technologies, Inc (Ohio-based heavy manufacturer).; Musicland Corporation (Minnesota-based 1000 store music retailer); HomeLife Corporation (Illinois-based furniture retailer and Sears spin-off); Polymer Group, Inc. (North Carolina-based polymer manufacturer); and Globe Holdings, Inc. (Boston and Alabama-based spandex manufacturer). He later expanded his practice to include representing official committees of unsecured creditors in chapter 11 cases. His chapter 11 committee representations have included Renaissance Residential; New Creative Enterprises; InGEAR Corporation; Universal Food & Beverage, Inc; and Capital Engineering & Manufacturing Company.
More recently, he began representing private equity funds in their acquisitions and dispositions of troubled companies. These matters, in turn, led to new clients as members of his former committees began to turn to him for general advice for their own businesses and as other portfolio companies of his private equity fund-clients turned to him for representation in their affairs. Most recently, he has been enjoying working with a number of start-ups and their entrepreneur-founders.
Mr. Friedland has also written more than 100 articles on various legal topics and has spoken at dozens of legal conferences. He is AV rated by Martindale Hubbell, holds a 10/10 rating on the attorney rating website AVVO, has been repeatedly recognized as an Illinois “superlawyer,” and has received several other similar distinctions. Mr. Friedland has been profiled, interviewed, and/or quoted in a number of publications, including Smart Business Magazine; The M&A Journal; Inside Counsel; LAW360; Business Week.com; The Bankruptcy Strategist; Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review; Bankruptcy Court Decisions; Dow Jones LBO Wire; and the Daily Deal .
Mr. Friedland graduated from the State University of New York at Albany, magna cum laude, in 1991 and from the University of Pennsylvania Law School in 1994. He clerked for a federal judge for one year before entering private practice. He was an Adjunct Professor of Strategic Management at the University of Chicago’s Graduate School of Business for several years and was the 2006 Clayton Center for Entrepreneurial Law Visiting Professor of Business Law at The University of Tennessee College of Law. Mr. Friedland was a partner with Kirkland & Ellis before joining Levenfeld Pearslstein.