Bankruptcy professionals have long been described as the “ultimate generalists,” being all at once corporate governance and securities attorneys, M&A professionals on a fast-track, real estate and foreclosure lawyers, the list goes on. Indeed, the volume and pace at which the sales of assets and operating businesses must close, mandates that restructuring lawyers know everything about business—including the array of instruments that outline one seemingly simple, but complex issue: the extent to which parties can share information. 

In today’s increasingly complex, competitive and litigious business environment where nondisclosure agreements have crept in scope to also be noncompete agreements or anti-poaching agreements in addition to confidentiality agreements, the need for legal professionals with generalized knowledge who have managed business enterprises on a whole has become a mainstay of the corporate world. While NDAs are only one small piece of that puzzle, we are seeing that failure to draft or analyze them correctly can have lasting and expensive consequences.