David D. Cleary

Hon. David D. Cleary is a U.S. Bankruptcy Judge for the Northern District of Illinois in Chicago, appointed in December 2019. Previously, he chaired Greenberg Traurig LLP’s Business Reorganization & Financial Restructuring Practice in Phoenix, where he focused his practice on business restructuring and reorganizations, distressed-asset dispositions and financings, debt restructurings and workouts, and litigation. He regularly represented distressed companies, financial institutions, secured and significant creditors, noteholders and bondholders, hotel/resort owner/operators, boards of directors, debtors, official and ad hoc committees, and insurance and surety portfolios. Judge Cleary is a Master with the Arizona Inns of Court, past co-chair of the American Bar Association’s Litigation Section of its Bankruptcy and Insolvency Committee, past chair of the Chicago Bar Association’s Rules Sub-Committee of its Bankruptcy Committee, and past co-chair of ABI’s Asset Sales and Health Care Committees. He was listed in The Best Lawyers in America and in Southwest Super Lawyers, and he was a member of the winning team for The M&A Advisor’s “Restructuring of the Year (Over $500mm to $1 Billion)” award in 2015 for the restructuring of FriendFinder Networks. He is also rated AV-Preeminent by Martindale-Hubbell. Judge Cleary was admitted to practice in Arizona and Illinois, before the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the Ninth and Seventh Circuits, and before the U.S. District Courts for the District of Arizona and the Northern District of Illinois. He received his B.A. cum laude from Arizona State University in 1984 and his J.D. with honors from DePaul University College of Law in 1987, where he was an article and note editor for the DePaul Law Review.