Corali Lopez-Castro

Hon. Corali Lopez-Castro is a U.S. Bankruptcy Judge for the Southern District of Florida in Miami, sworn in in 2023. Previously, she had been a partner and managing partner at Kozyak Tropin & Throckmorton, LLP in Miami since 1998, where she concentrated her practice on bankruptcy and commercial litigation matters, focusing on bankruptcy reorganizations and liquidations, receiverships, debt restructuring and creditors’ rights. She has been involved with the liquidation of four bank holding companies in bankruptcy courts around the country and in state court. Judge Lopez-Castro served on the panel of trustees for the Southern District of Florida between 1998 and 2002, during which she time was responsible for the liquidation of assets in bankruptcy cases filed in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Florida. She also had been appointed a receiver in several cases, including as equity receiver in a $100 million Ponzi scheme case. In 2014, Judge Lopez-Castro was inducted as a Fellow into the 25th Class of the American College of Bankruptcy. In 2006, she was elected the second woman president of the Cuban American Bar Association, the largest voluntary bar association in Florida, and in 2018, she was inducted into the International Academy of Trial Lawyers (IATL). She has devoted most of her career promoting diversity in the legal profession. Judge Lopez-Castro received her B.A. from Brown University and her J.D. cum laude from the University of Miami School of Law.