Randy Michelson focuses her practice on complex business bankruptcy
and receivership cases, restructuring, assignments for the benefit of
creditors, and consideration of bankruptcy issues in sophisticated
corporate transactions. For nearly 25 years, she has represented creditors,
creditors' committees, trustees, receivers and purchasers of distressed
assets in virtually every type of insolvency matter.
In addition to her role as counsel, she has been a mediator, been
designated an expert witness, and served as a Chapter 11 trustee. She has
appeared on CNN and CourtTV to provide expert legal analysis on
insolvency topics. She lectures frequently.
Ms. Michelson represented the prevailing parties in Perlman v. Catapult
Entertainment, Inc (In re Catapult Entertainment, Inc.), 163 F.3d 747 (9th Cir.),
cert. dismissed,120 S.Ct. 369 (U.S.1999), the leading Ninth Circuit
case on the treatment of intellectual property in bankruptcy cases.
Ms. Michelson is vice president of the Bay Area Receivers Forum and a
director of the International Women's Insolvency & Restructuring
Confederation (IWIRC), Northern California chapter. She was president
of the California Bankruptcy Forum and the Bay Area Bankruptcy
Forum, and she chaired the Commercial Law and Bankruptcy Section of
the Bar Association of San Francisco. She is a resolution advocate on the
Bankruptcy Dispute Resolution Panel of the United States Bankruptcy
Court for the Northern District of California. She serves as a mediator in
disputes between citizens and police officers for San Francisco's Office of
Citizen Complaints.
Ms. Michelson has been selected as a Superlawyer each year since 2004.
She appears in the 2009-2010 edition of the Restructuring and Insolvency
Handbook.
Michelson formerly was a partner at McCutchen, Doyle, Brown and
Enersen, and its successor, Bingham McCutchen, where she headed the
firm's Bankruptcy, Creditors' Rights and Insolvency Group. She
practiced at that firm for over 22 years, from 1985 to 2007.
Michelson was a law clerk to the Honorable Spencer Williams of the
Northern District of California. She received her J.D. from Yale
University in 1983 and her B.A., with distinction in all subjects, in
psychology from Cornell University in 1979.