© 2018 The Texas Lawbook.
By Brooks Igo
(March 5) – Winstead announced Monday it has lured a team of three bankruptcy shareholders from Munsch Hardt in Dallas.
The group includes Joe Wielebinski, Paul Seiler and Walter Buchanan. Wielebinski and Seiler were both Winstead lawyers before they joined Munsch Hardt earlier in their careers.
Seiler called Winstead an “ideal platform” for his practice, pointing specifically to the breadth and depth of the firm’s financial institutions practice.
“Winstead saw they had a need [in bankruptcy] and wanted to build on an already robust practice,” Wielebinski said. “You can be that missing link and puzzle piece.”
Wielebinski’s practice focuses on bankruptcy, creditors’ rights and financial restructuring. He also represents victims of financial fraud, money laundering and other white collar crimes.
Seiler and Buchanan are corporate finance attorneys who concentrate on insolvency issues, including the representation of secured lenders in taxable and tax-exempt debt restructuring, monetization and remedy enforcement matters. In recent years, they have primarily handled credit financings to downstream and midstream borrowers, commodity traders and processors, and power generation facilities.
Struggles in the energy industry, particularly in Texas, have presented opportunities for their practices, Wielebinski said. Seiler added that they are also seeing increased activity in the power generation, retail and health care sectors.
Wielebinski noted that another development he is watching closely is the Bankruptcy Venue Reform Act of 2017, a bill introduced in January by the unlikely pair of U.S. Senators John Cornyn and Elizabeth Warren.
“Venue reform is a significant issue,” Wielebinski said. “Folks not in New York and Delaware are encouraged [by the bill].”
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