Restructuring a Firm after Discrimination or Sexual Harassment Claims

Ervin M. Terwilliger is the founder and managing partner of Three Twenty-One Capital Partners in Marriottsville, Md., manages the firm’s portfolio of engagements, interacting directly with clients, investors and Three Twenty-One Capital Partners’ deal teams.

He has been featured in industry publications providing financial insight on various U.S. industry sectors and the M&A landscape. Mr. Terwilliger has completed more than 120 transactions and consulting engagements in the last 10 years, with a concentration on family and founder-run businesses. He sits on the board of directors for The Maryland Proton Therapy Center and has held director positions for international manufacturing concerns, as well as interim C-level positions. Mr. Terwilliger is an active member of ABI and the Turnaround Management Association and is frequently called upon to be a valuation, process and sales expert in U.S. bankruptcy courts.

He received his B.S. in business administration in management and marketing from the University of Delaware.

Debra S. Katz is a founding partner with Katz, Marshall & Banks, LLP. in Washington, D.C., where she concentrates her practice on employment discrimination, sexual harassment, wrongful discharge, Sarbanes-Oxley, corporate, environmental and other whistle-blower retaliation claims, SEC whistle-blower tips and contractual employment disputes. She has successfully represented dozens of whistle-blowers in the nuclear, financial, pharmaceutical and medical-device industries. She also regularly handles cases involving fraud in government contracts, including most recently at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan.

Washingtonian Magazine selected Ms. Katz for its “Best Attorneys” list from 2004-15, naming her one of the magazine’s top 30 “Stars of the Bar” in its biennial listings in 2009 and 2011. She was selected for inclusion in the 2006-18 editions of The Best Lawyers in America and named its 2018 and 2013 Civil Rights Law “Lawyer of the Year” in Washington, D.C., and she is rated AV-Preeminent by Martindale-Hubbell. Ms. Katz was named by Super Lawyers as a leading Washington, D.C., lawyer from 2007-17, and was also recognized by Super Lawyers as a top 100 lawyer in Washington, D.C. and top 50 female lawyer in Washington, D.C. from 2009-17. She was featured in Super Lawyer’s 2009 edition as one of the top four whistleblower attorneys in Washington, D.C., and profiled as a pioneering whistleblower attorney in the 2009 Super Lawyer’s article “Protecting the Insider.”

In 2007, Human Resource Executive magazine named Ms. Katz one of the nation’s “Top 10 Plaintiffs’ Attorneys to Fear the Most.” In January 2014, she was selected to the 2013-14 edition of Lawdragon’s list of “The 500 Leading Lawyers in America.” Ms. Katz serves as vice chair on the board of directors of the Project on Government Oversight (POGO), a nonpartisan independent government watchdog founded to strengthen laws and regulations to protect whistleblowers from intimidation and retaliation and to create a more accountable and effective federal government by investigating allegations of government corruption and misconduct. She is a contributing writer for Ms. magazine, where she writes about legal issues of importance to women, and she is co-chair of ALI-CLE’s Advanced Employment Law program and a board member of Law360’s editorial advisory board.

Ms. Katz is admitted to the Bars of the District of Columbia, New York and Pennsylvania, and before the D.C. Federal District Court, D.C. Court of Appeals, Maryland Federal District Court and the U.S. Supreme Court.

She received her B.A. summa cum laude from Union College, where she was a member of Phi Beta Kappa, and her J.D. cum laude from the University of Wisconsin Law School, where she served as a member of the Wisconsin Law Review and as articles editor of the Wisconsin Women’s Law Journal.

Hon. Judith K. Fitzgerald is a shareholder with Tucker Arensberg, P.C. in Pittsburgh, where her practice incorporates service as an expert witness, consultant, mediator, arbitrator and receiver.She retired from her position as a U.S. Bankruptcy Judge for the Western District of Pennsylvania after more than 25 years on the bench, during which time she served as Chief Judge for 5 years. She has since completed courses in mediation and provides ADR assistance in complex commercial and consumer cases.

During her time on the bench, Judge Fitzgerald presided over high-profile cases and numerous complex commercial reorganizations, including bankruptcy mass tort cases. She also chaired technology-related committees for the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. Her career has included positions as judicial law clerk, Assistant U.S. Attorney and law professor.

Judge Fitzgerald is active in many professional organizations, including the American Law Institute, American College of Bankruptcy and the American Inns of Court. She served as president of the National Conference of Bankruptcy Judges and as an ABI Board member, and has received numerous recognition for her efforts to enhance the practice of law through education and for her services on the bench.

Judge Fitzgerald received her B.S. in psychology and B.A. in English writing from the University of Pittsburgh, and her J.D. from the University of Pittsburgh School of Law.

Ford Elsaesser is a Managing Partner at Elsaesser Jarzabek Anderson Elliott & MacDonald, Chtd. in Sandpoint, Idaho, where he primarily practices in bankruptcy, commercial and corporate law, and serves as a chapter 7 trustee, chapter 12 trustee, and receiver.

He is a former ABI president and chairman and was one of the originators of Bankruptcy Law for State Court Trial Judges, a successful ABI program. Mr. Elsaesser has been involved in five cases involving Catholic dioceses and religious orders. He serves as an adjunct professor in the LL.M. in Bankruptcy program at St. John’s University School of Law and teaches bankruptcy, advanced bankruptcy and federal courts at the University of Idaho College of Law. He successfully argued against the practice of routine vacatur of decisions made pending appeal in the U.S. Supreme Court case of U.S. Bancorp Mortgage Co. v. Bonner Mall Partnership, No. 93-714, in November 1994. Mr. Elsaesser is a Fellow of the sixth class of the American College of Bankruptcy.

He received his B.A. from Goddard College and his J.D. from the University of Idaho Law School in 1977.