Related Professionals
NEW YORK CITY, January 8, 2018 – Stevens & Lee was honored with a Financial Times Innovative Lawyer Award for North America at ceremony held on December 11, 2017, in New York City. Along with Stevens & Lee, the award recognized Burford Capital and Buchwald Capital Advisors.
The award honored the three firms for innovation in legal finance and for developing a solution to a regular issue faced by bankruptcy estates. In September 2016, Stevens & Lee Shareholder Nicholas F. Kajon and client Lee E. Buchwald, MagCorp bankruptcy trustee, held a public auction in which Gerchen Keller Capital, LLC, later acquired by Burford Capital LLC, purchased an interest in the right to receive litigation recoveries from a $213 million judgment on appeal. The sale took place while the judgment was on appeal to the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
Mr. Kajon and his team overcame objections filed by the judgment debtors and certain of the debtors’ noteholders to both the bidding procedures and the sale itself. Thereafter, Mr. Kajon and his team were successful in opposing the noteholders’ motion for a stay pending their appeal of the sale order in the District Court for the Southern District of New York. On March 8, 2017, the judgment was affirmed in all respects.
Mr. Kajon, Co-Chair of Stevens & Lee’s Bankruptcy and Financial Restructuring Department and Co-Chair of the Litigation Finance and Alternative Funding Group, has negotiated a number of multi-million dollar agreements with litigation funders pertaining to both insolvency and other commercial litigation claims, and has extensive contacts in the litigation finance industry. As a result, he and the lawyers in the Litigation Finance and Alternative Funding team can provide an end-to-end solution for clients seeking to assert litigation claims without committing their own capital.
Mr. Kajon has over 30 years of experience advising clients on financial restructuring, corporate governance and commercial litigation matters. He primarily represents debtors, hedge funds and trustees. He also regularly represents lenders, buyers of distressed assets, investors, suppliers, directors and executives. His clients have included companies in industries such as retail, apparel, transportation, energy, manufacturing, technology, telecommunications, hospitality and services. Mr. Kajon also has significant experience representing plaintiffs and defendants in insolvency related litigation including claims involving preferences, fraudulent transfers, breach of fiduciary duty, wrongful redemption, declaration of illegal dividends, equitable subordination, recharacterization and veil-piercing.
He has an LL.M. in Corporation Law from New York University School of Law, a J.D., cum laude, from New York Law School and a B.A. from Fordham University.
