Mr. Kaufman is an experienced trial and appellate lawyer representing business clients in litigation involving a broad range of substantive areas, including securities, RICO, insurance, real estate and banking. He has successfully defended dozens of law and accounting firms in securities class actions and other complex professional liability suits, generating a number of important precedents such as Dinsmore v. Squadron, Ellenoff, Plesent, Sheinfeld & Sorkin (In re Towers Financial Corp. Noteholders Litig.), 135 F.3d 837 (2nd Cir. 1998), where the Second Circuit held that there is no “conspiracy” liability under § 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and accordingly dismissed all claims against a law firm and one of its senior partners charged with violating that section. He has also won a string of victories for corporate directors and officers in class actions, shareholder derivative actions, and cases brought by bankruptcy trustees and creditors; for insurance companies both in high-exposure coverage litigation with insureds and in disputes with reinsurers; for commercial banks in class actions brought by borrowers; and for major hotel organizations and publicly-traded REITS in RICO and other suits brought by investors.

In recent years, Mr. Kaufman has been increasingly active in the corporate restructuring and bankruptcy arena, litigating some of the most challenging and high-profile cases to emerge in that area. For example:

• In the Owens Corning mass tort asbestos bankruptcy, he served as co-lead trial counsel for Credit Suisse First Boston, as agent for a consortium of 47 banks holding $1.6 billion of debt, against efforts by the debtors and other major creditor groups to effectively wipe out the banks’ recovery through substantive consolidation of non-debtor subsidiaries from which the banks had received guarantees and against which no other creditor groups had claims. Following trial and an appeal in the Third Circuit, the banks defeated substantive consolidation and obtained a full recovery of their outstanding debt plus interest.
  
  
• In the Adelphia Communications Corp. bankruptcy, he served as lead trial counsel for the FrontierVision bondholders in litigation over how properly to allocate among creditors the $17.5 billion realized from the sale of the debtors’ assets. A settlement of that litigation during trial paid FrontierVision bondholders $430 million, or 130 percent of par value.
  
  
• In the Charter Communications bankruptcy, he represents banks holding $1.9 billion of secured debt in opposing confirmation of a prearranged reorganization plan that seeks to reinstate the debt as unimpaired despite objections that the plan would trigger “change of control” and other defaults under the governing debt covenants.
  
  
• In the Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities bankruptcy, Mr. Kaufman represents numerous business entities, charitable foundations, and individuals in connection with pending and potential “clawback” suits against them arising from their pre-bankruptcy redemption of some or all of their direct or indirect investments with Madoff.

J.D., magna cum laude, Brooklyn Law School, 1976

• Notes Editor, Brooklyn Law Review 1975-1976

B.A., New York University, 1972

New York, 1977

U.S. Supreme Court
U.S. Court of Appeals, Second Circuit
U.S. Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit
U.S. Court of Appeals, Tenth Circuit
U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York
U.S. District Court, Eastern District of New York

The Association of the Bar of the City of New York