Potter Anderson Counsel Steve McNeill Serves as Adjunct Professor at Widener University Delaware Law School

Potter Anderson counsel R. Stephen McNeill has been named Adjunct Professor at Widener University Delaware Law School in Wilmington, Delaware. In that capacity, McNeill is teaching a course entitled “Fiduciary Duty in the Zone of Insolvency.”

After providing a quick primer on general fiduciary duty law, the course will focus on how those duties change once the business becomes insolvent. Topics to be addressed will include how to handle competing derivative complaints by shareholders and creditors, whether a settlement by one group must be noticed upon the other group, and whether those settlements can be avoided in a subsequent bankruptcy filing. The course is intended to address fiduciary duties that are owed to a business that is insolvent but has not yet filed for bankruptcy and how management must balance the often-competing desires of shareholders and creditors during that time period.

As a supplement to the course, McNeill serves as editor of a forthcoming publication by the American Bar Association, presently entitled “Fiduciary Duty in the Zone of Insolvency.” The publication is set to cover the same general topics as the course, with each chapter focused on a separate aspect of fiduciary duty law and how it could shift when the business becomes insolvent. Because the case law on many of these areas is nascent, many of the chapters are designed to “predict” how the Court of Chancery might react when faced with typical fiduciary duty issues involving derivative claims brought by creditors, as opposed to shareholders. The publication outline is organized into a “series of essays,” currently contemplating 16 different chapters. Several of these topics remain available for authorship. If you or one of your colleagues is interested in writing a chapter for this publication, please email Steve McNeill.

McNeill focuses his practice on complex bankruptcy proceedings involving national and regional clients, including debtors, secured lenders, creditors’ committees and a variety of unsecured creditors. He has been involved in contesting and defending asset sales and plans of reorganization, assumption and rejection of leases and contracts, and other creditor issues including defense of preference litigation.

In addition to being a frequent author on bankruptcy-related topics, McNeill is a coordinating editor of the American Bankruptcy Institute Journal’s Building Blocks column, co-secretary of the Delaware Bankruptcy Inn of Court, and a certified Superior Court mediator.

About Potter Anderson

Potter Anderson & Corroon LLP is one of the largest and most highly regarded Delaware law firms, providing legal services to regional, national, and international clients. With more than 100 attorneys, the firm’s practice is centered on corporate law, corporate litigation, intellectual property, commercial litigation, bankruptcy, labor and employment, and real estate.