Virtually Effective - Conducting Professional and Persuasive Hearings on Remote Platforms

Eric Henzy is a shareholder and partner at Zeisler & Zeisler. He has extensive experience representing debtors, creditors' committees, secured and unsecured creditors and other parties in bankruptcy cases and out-of-court workouts.

Eric has appeared in bankruptcy courts around the country and has represented parties in a number of the first hedge fund insolvencies in the country. He has first-chair tried more than thirty contested matters and adversary proceedings to judgment.

Prior to joining Z&Z, Eric practiced in the bankruptcy group at Reid and Riege, P.C. in Hartford; and previously, at the New York firm Milbank, Tweed, Hadley and McCloy. He also served as law clerk to The Honorable Alan H. W. Shiff, United States Bankruptcy Judge for the District of Connecticut.

In 2018, Eric accepted an invitation to become a James T. Cooper Lifetime Fellow. The Fellows is a collection of the State's most outstanding lawyers, judges and teachers who devote their time and talent to sponsoring programs that address matters concerning the legal profession, the administration of justice, and the rule of law in society.

Julie A. Manning is the Chief Judge of the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Connecticut. She was appointed to the court on September 9, 2013, succeeding Judge Lorraine M. Weil.

Prior to joining the court, Manning was employed as a member of the partnership at the private practice firm of Shipman & Goodwin, where she focused on bankruptcy and creditor-debtor rights, as well as insolvency and reorganization law.

Judge Manning earned a bachelor's degree from Fairfield University and a J.D. from Suffolk University.

Andrew Helman is a partner in the Restructuring, Insolvency and Bankruptcy practice group at Dentons Bingham Greenebaum. He focuses his practice on bankruptcy and insolvency matters and works with all types of businesses, including those in the health care sector, to help them restructure and protect their assets.

Andrew has served as lead counsel to debtors, trustees, secured parties and others in chapter 11 cases, including having served as independent counsel to a state attorney general in several chapter 11 cases in New England and Delaware. He has particular experience as lead counsel representing rural hospitals in chapter 11 cases and has successfully confirmed chapter 11 plans that have allowed rural hospitals to continue operating with restructured balance sheets.

His practice also includes commercial and insolvency-related litigation. He successfully obtained three temporary restraining orders and a permanent injunction against the U.S. Small Business Administration due to the agency’s decision to exclude debtors from participating in the federal Paycheck Protection Program.

Andrew frequently writes articles for national insolvency publications and teaches seminars on bankruptcy and fraudulent transfer law. In addition, he is co-chair of the American Bankruptcy Institute’s Health Care Committee and was a recipient of the American Bankruptcy Institute’s 40 Under 40 Award in 2019. He was also selected as one of 40 attorneys nationally to participate in the National Conference of Bankruptcy Judges' 2016 NextGen Program. He is ranked by Chambers for bankruptcy and restructuring and has been selected by his peers for inclusion in the 2015-2020 issues of Super Lawyers & Rising Stars.

Ms. Austin Smith specializes in M&A and bankruptcy disputes with subject matter expertise in valuation and credit and solvency analysis.

She provides testifying and consulting expert services in litigation matters related to mergers and acquisitions, dissenting shareholder actions, leveraged buyouts, recapitalization, debt recharacterization and avoidance actions. As representative engagements, Ms. Austin Smith has been retained as a solvency or valuation expert in connection with the bankruptcies of Lehman Brothers (on behalf of JPMorgan Chase), Caesars Entertainment Operating Company (on behalf of Apollo Global Management), Energy Future Holdings (on behalf of Wilmington Trust Company), and U.S. Steel Canada (on behalf of United States Steel). Ms. Austin Smith has also testified, on multiple occasions, as a valuation expert before the Delaware Court of Chancery on appraisal and other M&A litigation matters. In addition, she has been retained as a valuation expert in similar dissenting shareholder matters in New York.

Ms. Austin Smith has written a number of publications and presented on valuation and credit analysis, for organizations including the American Bar Association, the American Bankruptcy Institute, the National Conference of Bankruptcy Judges, the Delaware State Bar Association, Thomson Reuters, and Bloomberg Law. She is a contributing author to the Model Merger Agreement for the Acquisition of a Public Company, published by the ABA’s Mergers and Acquisitions Committee, and a contributing researcher to The Standard & Poor’s Guide to Fairness Opinions: A User’s Guide for Fiduciaries. She is Co-Chair of the American Bar Association Joint Task Force on M&A Litigation and is founder and former Co-Chair of the ABA Financial Advisor Task Force.

Ms. Austin Smith is also a member of the teaching faculty of Harvard University Extension School, where she teaches a graduate finance course and a faculty member of the American Bar Association’s National Institute of Negotiating Business Acquisitions.

Ms. Austin Smith serves on the Board of Directors for The Brattle Group.