Philip Bentley

Hon. Philip Bentley is a U.S. Bankruptcy Judge for the Southern District of New York in New York, sworn in on Sept. 7, 2022. Prior to joining the court, he has been a partner in the bankruptcy and restructuring department of Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel LLP, where his practice focused on complex litigation in bankruptcy courts, as well as other federal and state courts. In addition to occasionally representing debtors, trustees and examiners, Judge Bentley frequently litigated on behalf of official committees and creditor groups in large bankruptcies, including Purdue Pharma, Puerto Rico, Residential Capital, Madoff Investment Securities, General Motors, W.R. Grace, Adelphia Communications, WorldCom, Dow Corning and SGL Carbon. A regular speaker on bankruptcy issues, he is a member of the Federal Bar Council’s Bankruptcy Litigation Committee and of the National Conference of Bankruptcy Judges, and he has served as a court-appointed mediator in several chapter 11 cases, including Celsius Network. Prior to his appointment, Judge Bentley was a member of the advisory board for ABI’s annual New York City Bankruptcy Conference, as well as a longstanding member of the Policy Committee of Human Rights Watch. He received his B.A. cum laude from Yale University and his J.D. cum laude from Columbia Law School, where he was a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar.