Jason W. Bank

Jason is chair of the firm’s Bankruptcy and Restructuring Practice Group. He focuses his practice in the areas of commercial bankruptcy, out-of-court workouts, corporate restructuring and creditors’ rights. Jason also acts as general legal counsel to numerous small- and middle-market businesses and business owners.

Jason has successfully guided numerous businesses through out-of-court restructurings and Chapter 11 reorganizations. He has negotiated resolutions of complex financial issues and debtor-creditor disputes and achieved consensual restructurings while avoiding bankruptcy or litigation.  When necessary, Jason has filed Chapter 11 for businesses to help preserve their assets and operations. He has helped to successfully reorganize numerous businesses in a wide variety of industries, including automotive, retail, construction, education, real estate, sports and entertainment. He also assists parties with buying and selling assets out of bankruptcy. Finally, he has represented numerous closely held business owners in distressed situations.

Jason has considerable experience representing clients in connection with the health care industry. Many organizations within the health care industry—from physician groups to hospitals to health systems— are experiencing distress due to economic challenges, regulatory changes, technological advances, and competitive pressures. He helps clients navigate these challenges.

Jason also devotes a significant amount of his practice to the representation of creditors in distressed situations and workouts, providing counsel, negotiating resolutions, and initiating litigation, when necessary, to enforce his clients’ rights. He represents creditors across a wide variety of industries, with a particular emphasis on the automotive industry, including serving as creditors’ rights counsel to a Tier One auto supplier. He has prosecuted and defended numerous preferential transfer and fraudulent conveyance actions.

Jason is a certified mediator and  has helped to resolve numerous disputes arising from bankruptcy litigation. He serves as Vice Chair of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Michigan’s Facilitative Mediation Panel. 

For nearly ten years, Jason served as an adjunct professor of law at the Michigan State University College of Law on the subject of Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization. Jason served as President of the Detroit Chapter of the Turnaround Management Association and served on the TMA’s Board of Directors from 2012 through 2018. He frequently lectures to professional and trade associations, and publishes on the subjects of bankruptcy and restructuring. 

Jason has consistently been recognized as a “Michigan Super Lawyer” by Thomson Reuters for the last 12 years and was named one of the Top 100 Attorneys in Michigan by this publication for 2015-2017. He has also been recognized by Best Lawyers in America and has been selected as a Top Lawyer by DBusiness Magazine in the areas of Bankruptcy and Creditor/Debtor Rights and Insolvency and Reorganization Law. Jason is an active member in his community and volunteers with Scouting, youth sports leagues and Matrix Human Services (the largest Head Start provider in Detroit). He is an active member of his church, St. Thomas a Becket, in Canton, Michigan. He has also served on the Southeast Michigan American Heart Association Metro Detroit Heart Walk Executive Cabinet.

Articles

• “Representing a Business in a Workout or Bankruptcy,” Michigan Bar Journal (October 2019)
• “Nuts and Bolts of Evaluating Third-Party Releases in Chapter 11 Plans,” American Bankruptcy Institute Journal (September 2018)