Kenneth Brown, resident in the firm’s San Francisco office, has extensive experience in bankruptcy and commercial litigation. He has represented and advised debtors, unsecured creditors, secured creditors, insurers, creditors’ committees, and trustees in large complex chapter 11 and chapter 15 cases and in related litigation in both state and federal court. Ken leads the firm’s litigation team in representations of the sex-abuse survivor committees in the chapter 11 bankruptcy cases involving the Roman Catholic Church. These matters involve the intersection of the First Amendment and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (“RFRA”) with the Bankruptcy Code and focus on recovering assets transferred by the debtor prior to filing bankruptcy as part of an asset-protection scheme to shield assets from the claims of victims of sex abuse. The representations also require expertise in identifying, analyzing, and prosecuting claims against the management of the debtor for a
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- University of California at Santa Barbara (B.A., with high honors, 1977)
- Hastings College of Law, University of California (J.D. 1981)
Bar and Court Admissions
- 1981, California
- Law firm bankruptcies: Brobeck, Phleger & Harrison; Heller Ehrman, Landels Ripley & Diamond
- Creditors’ committees in Boy Scouts of America; TK Holdings Inc. (Takata Americas); The Weinstein Company ; USA Gymnastics
- Committees in Catholic church bankruptcies: Christian Brothers Institute; Archdiocese of Santa Fe; Archdiocese of Milwaukee; Catholic Diocese of Fairbanks; Catholic Diocese of Wilmington; Diocese of Great Falls; Roman Catholic Diocese of Rochester; Roman Catholic Diocese of San Diego
- Cross-border case: Katsumi Iida
- Director, Bay Area Bankruptcy Forum (2001-)
- Mediator, San Francisco Bar Association, Early Settlement Program (1997-2003)
- Bankruptcy Dispute Resolution Program, United States Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of California (1994-)
- Member, State Bar of California Business Law Section Debtor/Creditor Committee (1999-2002)
Lecturer, American Bankruptcy Institute; Association of Insolvency & Restructuring Advisors; Bar Association of San Francisco; Santa Clara County Bar Association
- The Estate’s Potential Claims Against Management for Failure to Prevent Sexual Misconduct 356 American Bankruptcy Trustee Journal 30 (No. 3 Summer 2019), September 2019
- Stranger in Paradise? The Role of a Foreign Bankruptcy Trustee in Chapter 15 27 ABI Journal No. 3 at 26 (April 2008), April 2008
- “Discovery in Debt Collection Actions,” in Debt Collection Practice in California (2d ed. 2000)
- “Tenants in Distress: Pitfalls and Opportunities for the Retail Landlord,” Shopping Center Business (1998).
- “Law Firm Break-Ups and Bankruptcies,” 3 Legal Malpractice Report (No. 2 1992)
- Co-author, “Dissolutions of Professional Firms Under State Law,” in program materials for the Third Annual Northwest Bankruptcy Institute (1989)
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