Russell Heller is an associate attorney at Kasen Law Group, P.C., where he represents debtors, creditors, and other stakeholders in bankruptcy and insolvency matters before the United States Bankruptcy Courts in the District of Delaware and the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. Russ brings to the firm a depth of experience across the full range of complex Chapter 11 reorganization, creditor representation, preference and fraudulent transfer litigation, and bankruptcy adversary proceedings.
Russ began his legal career as a judicial law clerk to the late Honorable Kevin J. Carey and the Honorable Laurie Selber Silverstein of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware—two of the most distinguished jurists in the country in the field of business bankruptcy. Working at the center of the nation’s busiest bankruptcy court, Russ developed an intimate familiarity with Delaware bankruptcy practice and procedure, complex Chapter 11 cases, contract and lease rejection, plan confirmation, and adversary proceedings that informs his work as a litigator to this day.
Following his clerkships, Russ practiced as a bankruptcy and restructuring associate at a leading global law firm in New York, where he represented corporate debtors and official committees of unsecured creditors in large, complex Chapter 11 cases involving hundreds of millions of dollars in obligations, including drafting first day motions, plans of reorganization, and confirmation materials, and handling claims investigation and reconciliation. He subsequently joined the creditors’ rights and bankruptcy group of a prominent law firm’s Wilmington, Delaware office, where he represented corporate debtors and creditors in complex Chapter 11 cases, assignments for the benefit of creditors, and receiverships, and litigated contested matters including contract and lease rejections, lift-stay motions, preference and fraudulent transfer actions, and plan of reorganization disputes across numerous courts including the District of Delaware and the Southern District of New York.
Most recently, Russ served for four years as a judicial law clerk to Chief Judge Laura Taylor Swain of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, assisting with one of the most complex restructurings in history—the ongoing reorganization of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico and its instrumentalities under PROMESA—including interdistrict coordination, legal analysis, and opinion drafting across a broad range of insolvency and restructuring issues.
Russ earned his J.D. from Cornell Law School, where he served as Managing Editor of the Cornell Journal of Law and Public Policy and was recognized with a CALI Excellence for the Future Award in Deals: The Economic Structure of Transactions and Contracting. He received his undergraduate degree from Northwestern University. He is admitted to practice in New York, Pennsylvania, and Delaware, and has been recognized by Best Lawyers as a “One to Watch” in Bankruptcy and Creditor Debtor Rights/Insolvency and Reorganization Law.