Samir Parikh

Robert E. Jones Professor of Advocacy and Ethics
Editor-in-Chief, Bloomberg Law Bankruptcy Treatise

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Biography

Professor Parikh’s research and writing focus on a variety of business law and bankruptcy issues, including mass tort restructurings, fraudulent transfer law, forum shopping, and municipal distress. In June 2024, he will be joining the faculty of Wake Forest School of Law.

Professor Parikh is a nationally recognized expert on mass tort restructurings and business reorganizations. Cornell Law Review recently selected him as a co-organizer for its 2024 symposium, “Mass Torts Inferno: New Battle Lines in the Resolution Debate.” Last year, The Yale Law Journal Forum published his essay, Opaque Capital and Mass Tort Financing, which spotlights the ways litigation finance companies are distorting resolution in mass tort bankruptcies. The University of Pennsylvania Law Review published his article, Financial Disequilibrium, which explores the often-times ruthless world of distressed debt investing. The law review also selected Professor Parikh to be a co-organizer of its 2022 symposium, “Debt Market Complexity: Shadowed Practices and Financial Injustice.” His essay, Creditors Strike Back: The Return of the Cooperation Agreement, further unpacks issues raised in his financial restructuring scholarship and appeared in the Duke Law Journal Online.

His article, Scarlet-Lettered Bankruptcy: A Public Benefit Proposal for Mass Tort Villains, is the first to propose a public benefit alternative to traditional resolution mechanisms for mass tort debtors. The article was published in the Northwestern University Law Review. His essay, Mass Exploitation, was published by the University of Pennsylvania Law Review Online and identifies new practices in mass restructuring cases like Purdue Pharma and Johnson & Johnson. The essay builds on his articles, The New Mass Torts Bargain and Due Process Alignment in Mass Restructurings (with Sergio Campos), which were published in the Fordham Law Review. These articles’ novel treatment and recommendations served as the basis for the law review’s Spring 2022 Symposium, “Mass Torts Evolve: The Intersection of Aggregate Litigation and Bankruptcy.”

On September 19, 2023, Professor Parikh testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on the hearing topic, “Evading Accountability: Corporate Manipulation of Chapter 11 Bankruptcy.” Further, On February 8, 2022, Professor Parikh was invited to testify before the Senate Subcommittee on Federal Courts, Oversight, Agency Action, and Federal Rights. He provided a Written Congressional Statement on the hearing topic, “Corporate Efforts to Side-Step Accountability Through Bankruptcy.” He frequently provides expert commentary for national media, including The Wall Street Journal, 60 Minutes (on background), The New York Times, Bloomberg News, NBC News, Law360, The Financial Times, and The Deal.

Professor Parikh’s 2020 article, Bankruptcy Tourism and the European Union’s Corporate Restructuring Quandary: The Cathedral in Another Light, was published in the University of Pennsylvania Journal of International Law and is the culmination of his work as a Fulbright Schuman Scholar at Oxford University. The article was one of eight articles selected to be part of the Oxford Business Law Workshop Series (Trinity Term). His 2017 article, Failing Cities and the Red Queen Phenomenon, 58 B.C. L. Rev. 599 (2017), offers an unprecedented empirical analysis of municipal bond offerings in order to disprove the argument that debt restructuring options increase borrowing costs for cities and counties. A New Fulcrum Point for City Survival, 57 Wm. & Mary L. Rev. 221 (2015), was the winner of the Southeastern Association of Law Schools’ 2015 Call for Papers Competition.

The Harvard Law School Bankruptcy Roundtable has selected all of Professor Parikh’s recent scholarship for distribution to its membership. The Final Report of the American Bankruptcy Institute’s Commission to Study the Reform of Chapter 11 cites his articles in a number of contexts.

In recognition of Professor Parikh’s innovative scholarship, the Fulbright Commission awarded him a 2018-19 Fulbright Schuman Grant. During the first half of 2019, Professor Parikh was a visiting professor at various institutions researching the new EU restructuring framework and its impact on corporations and sovereign nations. Most notably, he was a visiting professor of law at Oxford University. On November 6, 2019, Professor Parikh returned to Oxford to present his work to Oxford’s business law faculty and graduate students.

Professor Parikh is the Editor-in-Chief and an original contributing author for Bloomberg Law Bankruptcy Treatise. He wrote the chapters addressing sections 323, 324, 325, 541, 542, 543, 549, 550, 551, and 552, among others. Further, he is a co-author of the seventh edition of the Examples & Explanations (Bankruptcy and Debtor/Creditor) study guide.

In 2012, Professor Parikh was the sole recipient of the National Conference of Bankruptcy Judges Fellowship. The fellowship is awarded to an outstanding bankruptcy scholar as selected by a panel of federal judges, academics, and attorneys.

Professor Parikh has served as a peer reviewer for various law reviews, most recently for the Yale Law Journal and the Harvard Law Review. He currently serves on the Peer Review Board for the Northwestern University Law Review.

Service, Honors, and Events:

Professor Parikh serves on the Fulbright Commission’s Peer Review Selection Committee and plays an integral role in awarding grants through the Fulbright program.

In 2022, Professor Parikh was invited to join both the American Law Institute and the American College of Bankruptcy. He is one of fewer than 15 individuals to be admitted to both organizations.

Professor Parikh worked with the Association of Oregon Counties on a pro bono basis to draft a municipal bankruptcy bill and petition for passage by the state legislature. The bill had two primary facets: (1) providing a structure for an out-of-court restructuring; and (2) allowing local governments to file for chapter 9 bankruptcy in the event of an emergency. In Oregon, vested pension payments are protected by the state constitution. Consequently, government employers are mandated to make contributions to pension accounts, and these contributions are decimating their budgets. The resource drain effects school districts and leads to service-delivery insolvency.

Professor Parikh has also worked on a pro bono basis with the Bankruptcy Venue Reform PAC to draft and pass legislation that will limit forum shopping in chapter 11 corporate bankruptcy cases. Professor Parikh’s 2013 article Modern Forum Shopping in Bankruptcy, 46 Conn. L. Rev. 159 (2013), served as a template for initial versions of the legislation.

Along with Professors Robert Rasmussen and Michael Simkovic, Professor Parikh is a founding member of the Financial Restructuring Roundtable hosted by USC Gould School of Law, Lewis & Clark Law School, and Sidley Austin. The annual, invitation-only event brings together recognized business law scholars and practitioners to explore varied perspectives on financial restructuring issues.

Background:

Before joining the faculty at Lewis & Clark Law School, Professor Parikh practiced complex financial restructuring at Latham & Watkins and Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy in Los Angeles, California and Baker Botts in Houston, Texas. While in private practice, Professor Parikh’s representations included the following engagements:

  • In re Lehman Brothers Holdings (counsel to official committee of unsecured creditors)
  • In re Aloha Airlines (counsel to acquirer of assets)
  • In re Station Casinos (counsel to debtors)
  • In re Adelphia Communications Corp. (counsel to financial advisor)
  • Virgin Airlines (bankruptcy advisor)
  • In re Kmart (counsel to primary landlord)

Professor Parikh holds a JD from the University of Michigan Law School. After graduation, he was a law clerk for the Honorable Alan M. Ahart of the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Central District of California.

Professor Parikh served on the Executive Council for the Commercial Law League from 2016 – 2018.

Expert Witness Engagements:

Professor Parikh is a nationally recognized business law expert. He has served as an expert witness and consultant in numerous cases, including:

  • HotChalk v. Concordia University (expert for plaintiffs regarding fraudulent transfer law)
  • Turnage et al. v. Mississippi Power Company (expert for plaintiffs regarding various business law matters, including civil RICO claims)
  • In re NexxLinx (expert for defendant regarding fiduciary duties and related business law matters)
  • Bloodworth v. Tyfone (expert for plaintiff regarding fiduciary duties and fraudulent transfer law; testified in court)
  • Htaike v. Sein (expert for plaintiff regarding various business law matters, including civil RICO claims)
  • Guire v. Humphries (expert for debtor regarding various bankruptcy issues and attorney malpractice)
  • McKay v. Humphries (expert for debtor regarding attorney malpractice claim)
  • Advisor to Association of Oregon Counties regarding municipal bankruptcy legislation
  • Advisor to Bankruptcy Venue Reform PAC regarding federal legislation
  • Advisor to foreign government regarding comprehensive revision of local bankruptcy laws

Publications:

  • The Alchemist’s Inversion (forthcoming)
  • Mass Tort Trusts (D)evolve
    110 Cornell Law Review (forthcoming) (with Suneal Bedi)

  • Opaque Capital and Mass Tort Financing
    133 Yale Law Journal Forum 32 (2023)
  • Financial Disequilibrium
    171 University of Pennsylvania Law Review 1925 (2023)
  • Creditors Strike Back: The Return of the Cooperation Agreement
    72 Duke Law Journal Online 1 (2023)
  • Scarlet-Lettered Bankruptcy: A Public Benefit Proposal for Mass Tort Villains
    117 Northwestern University Law Review 425 (2022)
  • Mass Exploitation
    170 University of Pennsylvania Law Review Online 53 (2022)
  • The New Mass Torts Bargain
    91 Fordham Law Review 447 (2022)
  • Due Process Alignment in Mass Restructurings
    91 Fordham Law Review 325 (2022) (with Sergio Campos)
  • Bankruptcy Tourism and the European Union’s Corporate Restructuring Quandary
    42 University of Pennsylvania Journal of International Law 205 (2020) (one of eight articles selected to be part of the Oxford Business Law Workshop Series (Trinity Term); selected as a featured post on the Oxford Business Law Blog)
  • Failing Cities and the Red Queen Phenomenon
    58 Boston College Law Review 599 (2017) (with Zhaochen He)
  • A New Fulcrum Point for City Survival
    57 William & Mary Law Review 221 (2015) (winner of the Southeastern Association of Law Schools’ 2015 Call for Papers Competition)
  • Bloomberg Law: Bankruptcy Treatise(Editor-in-Chief and Original Contributing Author)
  • Examples & Explanations (Bankruptcy and Debtor/Creditor)(co-author, 7th ed.)
  • Exploring the Chapter 9 Option for Oregon’s Municipalities
    50 Willamette Law Review 619 (2014) (with Oren Haker) [Solicited Symposium Article]
  • Modern Forum Shopping in Bankruptcy
    46 Connecticut Law Review 159 (2013) (this article served as the initial template for S.5032, a bipartisan bankruptcy venue reform bill currently pending before Congress and is the single most cited article in the National Conference of Bankruptcy Judges’ Report on Proposal for Revision of the Venue Statute in Commercial Bankruptcy Cases, 93 Am. Bankr. L.J. 741 (2018))
  • Saving Fraudulent Transfer Law
    86 American Bankruptcy Law Journal 305 (2012) (cited in In re Lyondell Chemical Co., 2016 WL 4030937 (S.D.N.Y. 2016); recognized as one of the seminal articles on Section 546(e) and leveraged buyout avoidance (Bloomberg Law: Bankruptcy Treatise, pt. II, ch. 74 (D. Michael Lynn et al. eds., 2016))
  • The Improper Application of the Clear-and-Convincing Standard of Proof: Are Bankruptcy Courts Distorting Accepted Risk Allocation Schemes?
    78 University of Cincinnati Law Review 271 (2009)

Opinion Pieces:

  • The Day-In-Court Ideal is Distracting from Victim Recovery (Law360, March 16, 2023)
  • Why Bidding Format Can Be a Problem in Section 363 Sales (Law360, Jan. 4, 2023)
  • Bankruptcy is the Optimal Venue for Mass Tort Cases (Law360, Feb. 28, 2022)
  • Mass Tort Defendants Exploit Bankruptcy Rules to Avoid MDL (Law360, April 14, 2021)

Specialty Areas and Course Descriptions

Professor Parikh teaches classes involving financial restructuring, bankruptcy, business associations, banking, and white collar crime.

Academic Credentials

  • JD University of Michigan
  • BBA University of Miami