Lawrence D. Coppel

Lawrence D. Coppel is a sole practitioner with Law Office of Lawrence D. Coppel in Columbia, Md., and serves in cases as a consultant, trustee, examiner, receiver, assignee, mediator or independent director. Previously, he founded and chaired the Bankruptcy and Restructuring Practice at Gordon Feinblatt LLC in Baltimore, where he practiced for 50 years, maintaining a diverse practice in complex business restructuring and liquidation cases representing lenders, debtors, creditors’ committees, trustees, receivers and other parties. He reitred from the firm in 2020. Mr. Coppel is a Fellow in the American College of Bankruptcy and has served on the boards of directors of the College and the ACB Foundation. He chaired the Foundation’s Pro Bono Committee, which has made millions of dollars in grants go to legal services organizations to support pro bono bankruptcy services. He is also a Fellow of the Maryland and Baltimore Bar Foundations. Mr. Coppel has received recognition for his practice in every edition of The Best Lawyers in America since its first publication, and he was selected as the 2013 Baltimore “Lawyer of the Year” in Litigation – Bankruptcy. He also has been listed in Maryland Super Lawyers for Bankruptcy and Creditor/Debtor Rights since 2007. Mr. Coppel founded and was the first president of the Maryland Bankruptcy Bar Association. In 2016, the Maryland BBA awarded him its inaugural Paul Mannes Memorial Award. In 2019, the Maryland legislature enacted the Maryland Commercial Receivership Act, which governs receivership and assignment for the benefit of creditors proceedings filed in Maryland; it was drafted by a committee of insolvency professionals that Mr. Coppel organized and chaired. Thereafter, he worked with the Rules Committee of the Maryland Supreme Court to draft amendments to the Maryland Rules and official forms applicable to receivership and assignment for the benefit of creditors proceedings. Mr. Coppel is co-chair of the Board Advisory Committee of Maryland Volunteer Lawyers Service, and in 2015, he received the Arthur W. Machen Award from Maryland Legal Services Corporation for his work supporting pro bono representation. He presently serves as a director of Compass Inc., a nonprofit that provides services to developmentally disabled persons. Mr. Coppel received his undergraduate degree from the University of Maryland-College Park and his J.D. from the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law, where he served on the Maryland Law Review.