Houston lawyer Alfredo Perez, who recently retired after four decades of practicing corporate restructuring at Weil, Gotshal & Manges, appears to be the sole finalist to be the next bankruptcy judge in Houston, according to Bloomberg Law.
If approved, Perez would join his former Weil law partner, Judge Christopher Lopez, as one of the bankruptcy judges handling big cases in Houston.
The news publication reports that the FBI is conducting its routine investigation into Perez before being officially appointed by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
Perez would replace former Southern District of Texas Bankruptcy Judge David Jones, who resigned in October when he admitted that he had been in a secret romantic relationship with a former partner at Jackson Walker, which worked on nearly two-dozen bankruptcies that were pending in Judge Jones’ court.
A decade ago, Judge Jones and current Houston Bankruptcy Judge Marvin Isgur established the complex commercial bankruptcy docket, which focused on larger companies seeking to restructure under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code. The special docket became highly popular with corporate debtors and their lawyers and financial advisors because Judge Jones and Judge Isgur had significant experience in private practice with the more complicated, larger-dollar business bankruptcies.
Weil Gotshal, a New York-based firm with a strong national bankruptcy practice, was one of the law firms that regularly filed new corporate bankruptcy cases in the Southern District of Texas.
As a lawyer, Perez worked on bankruptcies ranging from Chuck E. Cheese and American Airlines to Core Scientific and Lehman Brothers.