Christopher J. Panos

Hon. Christopher J. Panos is a U.S. Bankruptcy Judge for the District of Massachusetts in Boston, initially appointed on Sept. 21, 2015. He served as Chief Judge from 2018-22 and sits on the Bankruptcy Appellate Panel for the First Circuit. In 2022, the Chief Justice of the U.S. appointed Judge Panos to serve a three-year term on the Judicial Conference Committee on the Administration of the Bankruptcy System. Prior to his appointment as a bankruptcy judge, he had practiced at Craig and Macauley in Boston for more than 25 years and served as its managing director until 2014, when attorneys at that firm joined Partridge Snow & Hahn LLP to open its Boston office. He served as partner in charge of the Boston office until his appointment to the bench. Judge Panos had a diverse practice focusing on business restructuring and insolvency, mergers and acquisitions, commercial finance, business litigation, and general business law. He represented public and privately held companies, individuals, banks, hedge funds and private-equity funds in many different business areas, including financial services, life sciences, energy, pharmaceuticals, manufacturing, retail and real estate development. He was regularly recognized in peer-review publications such as Chambers USA and The Best Lawyers in America, and which named him Boston “Lawyer of the Year” for bankruptcy and restructuring in 2012 and 2016. Law & Politics and Boston magazine named him a “Super Lawyer” each year of publication of that list and several times named him a “Top 100 Attorney” in Massachusetts and New England. Judge Panos was elected as a Fellow of the American College of Bankruptcy in 2008 and served on its First Circuit council from 2012-15. He served as chair of the Bankruptcy Law Section of the Boston Bar Association and on the Board of Trustees of the Boston Bar Foundation. Judge Panos received his undergraduate degree from Georgetown University in 1985 and his J.D. cum laude from Boston University School of Law in 1989, where he taught courses in legal research, writing and advocacy.