Jack Butler co-leads Skadden’s global Corporate Restructuring practice.  He focuses on advising companies and their stakeholders with respect to complex business reorganizations, troubled-company M&A, debt restructurings and financing matters, including advising directors and officers on corporate governance and fiduciary duty matters.  He has assisted many global businesses in restructurings outside the U.S., executing cross-border financing and privatization transactions, and divesting various business lines and entities. 

Mr. Butler was named one of the decade’s most influential lawyers by The National Law Journal in March 2010, and is one of two practicing lawyers and ten inductees in the inaugural class of the Turnaround, Restructuring and Distressed Investing Industry Hall of Fame.  He was one of The American Lawyer’s Dealmakers of the Year in 2010 and 2004, and also received the ILO Client Choice Award 2010 based on client nominations for excellent client care and quality of services rendered.  In 2008, Mr. Butler was awarded the Ellis Island Medal of Honor, which is given to Americans who exemplify outstanding qualities in both their personal and professional lives.

Mr. Butler’s representative engagements include transformational restructurings in the airline, automotive, energy, health care, manufacturing, media and telecommunications, retail and utilities industries on behalf of such companies as Delphi Corporation, Enron Corporation (special counsel), Kmart Corporation, Rite Aid Corporation, Singer N.V., Sprint Nextel Corporation, US Airways Group, Inc., Venator Group, Inc., The Warnaco Group (special counsel) and Xerox Corporation.  He also represented Air Transport International, Comdisco, FPA Medical Management, Service Merchandise Company and USN Communications in the disposition of their operating businesses and assets to third parties.  Mr. Butler also participates regularly in pro bono legal programs, including acting as a guardian ad litem in contested guardianship cases in Cook County, Ill.

Mr. Butler has been regularly recognized as a “leading lawyer” by Chambers Global; Chambers USA; The International Who’s Who of Business Lawyers; Who’s Who Legal USA; Who’s Who Illinois; The Best Lawyers in America; Euromoney and Legal Media Group’s Expert Guide to the World’s Leading Insolvency and Restructuring Lawyers; IFLR1000; Global Counsel (PLC Which Lawyer?); and The Lawdragon 500: Leading Lawyers in America.  He also has been included regularly in the K&A Restructuring Register, the peer group listing of the top restructuring attorneys and financial advisors in the United States, and Turnarounds & Workouts’ ranking of the outstanding restructuring lawyers in America.

Mr. Butler is the consulting editor for Navigating Today’s Environment: The Directors’ and Officers’ Guide To Restructuring (BeardGroup, Globe White Page Ltd, 2010).  He has published frequently on corporate governance best practices including, most recently, “Preserving State Corporate Governance Law in Chapter 11: Maximizing Value Through Traditional Fiduciaries,” 18 Am. Bankr. Inst. L. Rev. 337 (2010) and “Corporate Governance of Troubled Companies and the Role of Restructuring Counsel,” 63 Bus. Law. 855 (2008).

Mr. Butler served as chairman of the Turnaround Management Association for two years in 1996 and 1997, and is a fellow in the American College of Bankruptcy and International Insolvency Institute.  A past director of the American Bankruptcy Institute, he founded INSOL’s Group of 36 and has served many other industry organizations, including the American Board of Certification, the Commercial Finance Association Education Foundation and the New York Institute of Credit. 

Awards and Recognition

• Albert Schweitzer Award (Hugh O’Brien Youth Leadership)
  
  
• Celtic Medal of Honor (Irish Chamber of Commerce in the United States)
  
  
• Ellis Island Medal of Honor (National Coalition of Organizations)
  
  
• Leadership in Education Award (New York Institute of Credit)
  
  
• Turnaround, Restructuring and Distressed Investing Industry Hall of Fame (Turnaround Management Association)
  

Professional Associations/Affiliations

• American Bankruptcy Institute (Director, 1992-1998)
  
  
• American Board of Certification (Chairman, 1997 and Director, 1993-2003)
  
  
• American College of Bankruptcy (Fellow, Elected 1997)
  
  
• Commercial Finance Association (Associate General Counsel, 1998-2002)
  
  
• Commercial Finance Association Education Foundation (Chairman, Governing Board, 1997)
  
  
• INSOL International (Co-Chair, World Congress, 2005 and Group of Thirty-Six, 1995-present)
  
  
• International Insolvency Institute (Fellow, Elected 2002)
  
  
• Turnaround Management Association (Chairman, 1996-1997 and Director, 1991-1999, 2001-2004)
  

Civic Associations/Affiliations

• Children Affected by AIDS Foundation (Executive Advisory Council, 2003-present)
  
  
• Hugh O'Brian Youth Leadership (Board of Governors, 1998-present)
  
  
• St. Chrysostom’s Day School (Advisory Board, 2005-2009)
  
  
• Princeton University (John Maclean Society, 1985-present)