Harvey Miller
Harry W . Greenfield Bernstein Burkley
16
The College offers numerous programs for its Fellows . One example is the oral histories of various Fellows that the Archives Committee has created . These oral histories are archived at the Biddle Library of the University of Pennsylvania .
I started working in the bankruptcy field my second year of law school when , in 1968 , I was hired by a bankruptcy and collection firm . During the ensuing 54 years , I studied various court decisions , heard lectures , and read articles by or involving many of the attorneys and judges whom the Archives Committee has interviewed . In some of its upcoming columns , the Senior Fellows Committee will highlight some of those interviews .
It was a challenge to decide which of the Fellows ’ interviews to highlight first . But , one has to start somewhere , so I chose Harvey Miller ( Class VIII ). Below is a link to Harvey Miller ’ s archived interview .
The New York Times once called Harvey the preeminent bankruptcy attorney in the United States . That makes sense . During his career , which spanned from 1959 until his death in 2015 , Harvey was at the nucleus of most of this country ’ s major bankruptcy cases . Among other roles , he represented the debtors in the Continental Airlines , Eastern Airlines , Macy ’ s Federated Department Stores , W . T . Grant , Enron , General Motors and Global Crossing chapter 11 cases . That is just a few of the major roles
Harvey held in the largest bankruptcies filed in the United States . Harvey filed the first major case in Delaware . He practiced under the Bankruptcy Act , the Bankruptcy Code , and BAPCPA . Along the way , he observed how secured debt changed over the years and how developing reorganization plans became more challenging as banks took more and more collateral and hedge funds grew to become major players in the chapter 11 arena .
Beginning with his role as a first year associate working on what then was the largest Chapter XI case in the country ( at the office of Frederick Ballon ), his experiences with Charles Seligson , where two of his associates were Leonard Rosen and Martin Lipton ( co-founders of Wachtel , Lipton , Rosen & Katz ), to his years at Weil Gotshal & Manges , the interview traces Harvey ’ s growth into one of the most skilled bankruptcy practitioners at the same time it traces the growth of bankruptcy practice itself . Throughout his interview , Harvey provides his unique impressions of the bankruptcy practice and shares entertaining stories about his cases , other lawyers , judges and clients . Harvey ’ s interview is captivating and provides a road map of how business bankruptcy transformed into the practice we now know . The interviewer , Don Bernstein , does a fantastic job of moving the interview forward and , due to his knowledge of the New York bankruptcy practice , is able to guide Harvey through most of those major cases .
I encourage all of you to watch all of these video histories . Harvey ’ s interview can be accessed here .