For the past 44 years, Albert Togut has specialized in bankruptcy law to the exclusion of all other areas of practice. In 1980, he formed the firm of Togut, Segal & Segal LLP, a nationally recognized bankruptcy boutique that is the oldest in the country.

The firm has served as court-authorized lead counsel to the debtor in some of the largest and highest profile Chapter 11 cases, including Westinghouse (for the non-U.S. Debtors), Rockefeller Center, Pacific Drilling, Toisa Shipping, Olympia & York Tower B Company (better known as the World Financial Center, which involved a $1 billion restructuring of a 43-story commercial office building located at Two World Financial Center at Battery Park in Manhattan), Daewoo International (America) Corp. (which together with its Korean parent underwent the largest non-sovereign debt restructuring in history with aggregate liabilities exceeding $70 billion); Dewey & LeBeouf, AbitibiBowater (for the BCFC Debtor in the cross-border multibillion dollar restructuring), and Grubb & Ellis.

The firm keeps its billing rates 25% below market. Because of these lower billing rates and efficiencies only achievable by a boutique, the firm is unique in its ability to represent mid-market companies which cannot afford the rates of larger firms. They get the highest quality services (the same as provided in high-profile cases) at an affordable cost. And they get the attention of senior partners rather than junior associates. Thus, the firm is unparalleled in being able to expertly represent mid-sized companies.

The firm also specializes in partnering with main counsel in megacases to handle conflicts that the main counsel cannot. Examples are Sun Edison (co-counsel with Skadden to the Debtors), Aeropostale (co-counsel with Weil to the Debtors), Enron (co-counsel with Weil to the Debtors), American Airlines (co-counsel with Skadden to the UCC), General Motors (conflicts counsel with Weil to the Debtors), Chrysler Automotive (co-counsel with Jones Day to the Debtors), Kodak (co-counsel with Milbank to the UCC), Avaya (conflicts counsel with Kirkland to the Debtors), A&P (conflicts counsel with Kirkland to the Debtors), Delphi Automotive (conflicts counsel with Skadden to the Debtors), and Frontier Airlines (conflicts counsel with Davis Polk to the Debtors).

Since 1981, Mr. Togut has been an active member of the trustee panel maintained by the Department of Justice in the Southern District of New York and has served as bankruptcy Trustee in bankruptcy in several thousand bankruptcy cases, under Chapter 11 and Chapter 7 of the Bankruptcy Code, including Refco, LLC (registered commodities broker) that at $4 billion, is the largest Chapter 7 case in the history of bankruptcy, Anthracite Capital, Inc., a specialty real estate finance company that invested in commercial real estate assets, Kingston Square (that owned apartment complexes subject to secured claims of approximately $400 million), and Axona International Credit & Commerce Limited (the liquidation of a Hong Kong banking institution). Mr. Togut has conducted massive fraud investigations and uncovered a fraud that resulted in a bankruptcy lawyer’s Federal and State convictions, and incarceration in 2018.

Mr. Togut is registered mediator in the Southern District of New York. He was appointed Mediator for the dispute with the Noteholders of Solutia Inc that was settled for $220.5 million. In Calpine, he represented the Court-appointed valuation expert who was appointed to assist the Court in evaluating the $10 billion spread between competing estate values which Mr. Togut resolved by consensual agreement of the parties allowing the Court to have an uncontested confirmation hearing. Mr. Togut was asked to mediate close to 100 adversary proceedings which were commenced in the Conseco cases in Chicago, nearly all of which he settled.

Mr. Togut is a Fellow of the American College of Bankruptcy, a Fellow of the International Insolvency Institute, Co-Chair of the Commission of the American Bankruptcy Institute (“ABI”) that studied the reform of Chapter 11, and a past Officer and ABI Director and Chair of ABI’s New York City program; he also served on the ABI’s fee-study commission that studied professional fees in chapter 11 business bankruptcy cases. Mr. Togut was twice a member of the Committee on Bankruptcy and Reorganization of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, a member of the International Bar Association, and a past President of the Bankruptcy Lawyers Bar Association of New York.

In 2019, he was honored by the Lincoln Center Corporate Council for his leadership in corporate reorganizations. He has received the New York Institute of Credit Leadership Award and was also the recipient of the Prof. Lawrence P. King award. He was named as a New York Super Lawyer every year since 2007 and has been named in the Top 100 lawyers in New York, and has been repeatedly chosen as a “Leading Lawyer” by Chambers USA.

Mr. Togut is admitted to the New York bar, the U.S. District Court for the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York, and Eastern District of Michigan, U.S. Court of Appeals, Second Circuit, and U.S. Supreme Court.

Togut, Segal & Segal LLP.

Since 1980, Togut, Segal & Segal has provided value-added legal services in some of the most famous and complicated Chapter 11 cases ever filed. Clients of the firm work with attorneys who possess a deep understanding, not only of bankruptcy law, but also of the practical business, financial and human considerations that guide the difficult decisions that come up at every turn in a complex bankruptcy case. The unique work that the firm does is sophisticated yet provided economically and efficiently.