Douglas J. Schneller

Douglas Schneller handles a broad range of complex transactional matters involving bank finance and lending; restructuring, bankruptcy and insolvency; intercreditor and subordination arrangements, including for mezzanine, leveraged, multi-lien and unitranche financings; claims analysis and reconciliation; and purchases and sales of par and distressed assets such as bank loans, notes, accounts receivable, trade claims, bankruptcy claims, and equity interests. He also counsels clients on a range of other transactional matters, including trade and receivable finance (including default-triggered puts and vendor/account receivable and trade financing); bankruptcy transactional matters including distressed investing, rescue and debtor-in-possession finance, and sales under Bankruptcy Code Section 363; corporate trust and agency; structured products; private placements; portfolio management and monitoring; and securities law matters.

Mr. Schneller’s clients include global and domestic banks, financial institutions, investment funds, companies and other parties including secured and unsecured creditors; agents to and lenders in syndicated and club lending groups; investors; trustees and collateral agents; and unsecured creditors. He represents clients in various finance and insolvency transactional matters, out-of-court restructurings (including cross-border and international), and the analysis and exercise of rights and remedies, including in proceedings pending under bankruptcy and insolvency laws in the US and other jurisdictions around the globe.

A portion of Mr. Schneller’s practice emphasizes investments and trading in syndicated and bilateral loans, loan portfolios, securities, claims, derivatives and other interests in domestic and international obligors and debtors in, near or emerging from financial distress, using LSTA, LMA and bespoke documentation. He advises clients regarding bankruptcy, reorganization, intercreditor and creditors’ rights matters. Mr. Schneller has also spoken and written about many of these areas, including intercreditor arrangements, the secondary market for and trading of bank loans and trade claims (including on LSTA, LMA and bespoke documents), and confidentiality and “big boy” matters.

During the past several years, Mr. Schneller has advised numerous clients in connection with thousands of transactions in bank loans, trade claims, swap claims, notes and other securities, and other financial instruments relating to distressed and performing borrowers, issuers and obligors, including various Lehman Brothers debtors, American Airlines, MF Global, Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities, Nortel, Drillships, Verso, Vertellus, AHMSA, Minosa, Icelandic banks (Glitnir, Kaupthing, Landsbanki), EFIH, Alpha Natural Resources, Chesapeake Energy, and General Motors, among many others.

In addition to his active legal practice, at prior firms Mr. Schneller has been, among other things, (i) the sole representative responsible for establishing and running the London office, (ii) the New York local practice section leader for the global finance practice, and (iii) the leader of the distressed investing and secondary trading practices. 

Mr. Schneller maintains an active pro bono legal practice. He has worked with the Clemency Project, which assisted federal prisoners, sentenced a decade or more ago to lengthy imprisonment for non-violent drug offenses, to seek the shorter sentences that likely would be imposed under current sentencing guidelines. Mr. Schneller has also represented a national not-for-profit organization committed to anti-bullying and anti-cyberbullying efforts; an animal rescue charity; various not-for-profit organizations in connection with corporate governance and tax-exempt issues; and low-income individuals seeking debt relief and protection from creditors under bankruptcy laws.