Richard K. Milin

RICHARD MILIN has been litigating complex, multimillion-dollar issues in the state, federal and bankruptcy courts for almost thirty-five years. He has handled all aspects of both commercial and bankruptcy litigation, from discovery and motion practice through mediation, arbitration, trial, and appeal.

Richard has represented the bankruptcy estates of Delphi, Enron, General Motors and Tower Automotive; the bankruptcy trustees in Anthracite Capital, Ellen Tracy, Refco LLC and Soundview; the creditors’ committees in A&P and American Airlines; the court-appointed valuation expert in Calpine; the future claims representative in the Quigley asbestos bankruptcy; and the Official Committee of Retirees in Nortel. Richard has also represented a condominium, a staffing agency, a travel agency, construction firms, sellers and managers of businesses, commercial tenants, an influential church pastor, and a town on Long Island.

Richard has specialized in analyzing novel legal issues and in developing creative strategies for the efficient resolution of complex commercial disputes. He has briefed and argued numerous issues of first impression concerning, among other things, the application of the rule against perpetuities to leases, whether bankruptcy estates can subordinate or disallow transferred claims, whether a bankruptcy estate can assert preference claims based on goods delivered within twenty days of bankruptcy and whether the voluntary postpetition termination of a swap agreement should be treated as prepetition for purposes of the setoff provision of the Bankruptcy Code.

Richard has litigated matters concerning fraud, breach of contract, breaches of fiduciary duty, alter ego, intellectual property, fraudulent transfers, preferences, setoffs, the validity and amount of claims against bankruptcy estates, insurance disputes, RICO, banking, trademarks, corporate valuation, the confirmability of plans of reorganization and the terminability of retirement benefits under § 1114(g) of the Bankruptcy Code. The amounts at stake have ranged from tens of thousands to several billion dollars.

Richard’s recent litigation efforts have yielded, among other things, more than $27 million in settlements of bankruptcy trustees’ claims against former corporate insiders, dismissal of claims against a church leader accused of being an “alter ego” of the former owner of Newsweek magazine, denial of a summary judgment seeking to dismiss $10 million in preference claims, a favorable settlement of fraudulent transfer claims against a condominium and a reduction of several hundred thousand dollars in an insurer’s demand for unpaid premiums.

Richard was educated at Princeton University, Oxford University (where he received a Ph.D. in Politics) and Harvard Law School, where he was an editor of the Harvard Law Review and research assistant to Professor Arthur Miller. After law school, Richard clerked for Judge Alvin Rubin of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. Richard is also a graduate of the American Bankruptcy Institute bankruptcy mediation program at St. John’s University School of Law. In 2017, Richard was a speaker and panel member at the American Bankruptcy Institute Annual Spring Meeting in Washington, D.C.

Richard and his wife have two adult daughters. Richard is an avid supporter of the arts who regularly attends the theater and musical events at Birdland, Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, and the Metropolitan Opera.