Elena Paras Paras Ketchum

Elena Paras Ketchum is a shareholder with the law firm of Stichter, Riedel, Blain & Postler, P.A. in Tampa, Fla., and is heavily involved in the firm’s insolvency, transactional and commercial litigation practices. In the insolvency arena, she is chiefly noted for her representation of debtors in possession in chapter 11 cases in such industries as trucking, manufacturing, construction, retail, restaurant, health care, printing and grocery. Ms. Ketchum has been lead counsel in successful out-of-court workouts of loans totaling in the hundreds of millions of dollars, and she represents clients in negotiating and documenting such complicated transactions as workout and loan modification agreements and agreements related to asset sales. On the transactional side, she has represented numerous buyers and sellers in connection with complex stock and asset sales and borrowers and guarantors in commercial loan transactions. Ms. Ketchum is well versed in Chapter 727 of the Florida Statutes dealing with “Assignments for the Benefit of Creditors,” having represented assignor and assignees. She previously was an assistant state attorney with the State Attorney’s Office for the Thirteenth Judicial Circuit, Hillsborough County, where she was assigned to the Felony division. Ms. Ketchum currently serves on the Local Rules Lawyers Advisory Committee for the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Middle District of Florida, is a past chair of the District-Wide Steering Committee for the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Middle District of Florida, and is a past president of the Tampa Bay Bankruptcy Bar Association. She is AV-rated by Martindale-Hubbell and listed in Chambers USA, The Best Lawyers in America and Super Lawyers. Ms. Ketchum received her B.A. from Agnes Scott College and her J.D. in 1997 from the University of Florida Levin College of Law.