Hon. Melanie L. Cyganowski (ret.)

Bio

Hon. Melanie L. Cyganowski is a partner with Otterbourg P.C. in New York and chairs its Bankruptcy practice. She joined the firm in 2008 after serving a full 14-year term as a U.S. Bankruptcy Judge for the Eastern District of New York and as its Chief Judge from 2005-08, and she now is a commercial and bankruptcy law litigator, mediator, arbitrator and expert witness. She has represented creditors, ad hoc committees and official committees of unsecured claimants in mass tort and other bankruptcy cases, including In re LTL I & LTL II & Red River Talc (a.k.a. the J&J cases) and In re Aearo (a.k.a. the 3M cases), In re Purdue Pharma (the Ad Hoc of Governmental & Other Contingent Litigation Claimants), In re Mallinckrodt and In re Hair Relaxer, et al. Judge Cyganowski has also testified as an expert witness in the Cayman Islands and BVI in connection with transnational bankruptcy proceedings. In addition, she is an active mediator, having mediated cases in bankruptcy and federal cases throughout the country, including In re The Diocese of Buffalo, NY, In re Madoff and In re Lehman Bros. In addition to representing debtors, she also represents clients in bankruptcy litigation matters and trials. An author of numerous articles, Judge Cyganowski is a Fellow of the American College of Bankruptcy. She also is active in the Commercial & Federal Litigation Section of the New York State Bar Association as a member of its Executive Committee, and she chaired the Section’s Nominating Committee from 1993-2023. Judge Cyganowski co-chaired the NYSBA Special Task Force on Courts from 2008-09) is a Fellow of the American and New York State Bar Foundations, and is a member of ABI, the American Bar Association, the Bar Association of the City of New York and the Federal Bar Council. She also was an adjunct professor of law at St. John’s University School of Law’s LL.M. in Bankruptcy Program and a commentator on Fox Business News, where she speaks from time to time on current bankruptcy issues. Judge Cyganowski received her J.D. magna cum laude from the State University of New York at Buffalo School of Law in 1981.

Description

Melanie L. Cyganowski