National Law Journal Names Danny Golden and Chris LaFollette to Finance, Banking and Capital Markets Trailblazers List
(New York and Houston) – The National Law Journal has named Akin Gump financial restructuring partner Daniel Golden and oil and gas partner Christine LaFollette to its inaugural list of Finance, Banking and Capital Markets Trailblazers.
Mr. Golden’s career began, the NLJ notes, after law school “at a small boutique specializing in bankruptcy.” In his first “mega case,” he represented the Official Bondholders’ Committee in Walter Industries—one of the first billion-dollar leveraged buyouts. It was the start of Mr. Golden’s professional career representing high-yield and distressed investors in Chapter 11 cases and out-of-court restructurings. He also played a central role advising the Official Creditors’ Committee in Delta Air Lines’ Chapter 11 proceedings, the Official Creditors’ Committee of WorldCom and the largest financial creditor in LyondellBassell.
Mr. Golden said distressed investing has become a “game changer” in the restructuring world over the past two decades. Deals are becoming harder to do, though, because of the large amount of capital committed to distressed investing. In addition, there is greater competition, the margins are smaller and investors are motivated to fight “for the last nickel.”
Ms. LaFollette, who was also named one of Texas Lawyer’s Texas Trailblazers (click here to learn more) and has previously been named by NLJ as an Energy Trailblazer (click here to learn more), was asked early on in her career to help with a capital markets deal—a rarity at the time for a woman, she said. She now works with clients to make sure they have an “on the shelf” registration to do deals on very short notice, with a practice that has included serving on the initial dropdown team that helped create the publicly traded master limited partnership. She described it as “a groundbreaking capital market product.”
One particular deal she enjoyed, Ms. LaFollette said, was a major financing in 2008 that was completed just a few days before the global financial crisis. “People were out of the market for a long time,” Ms. LaFollette said, “but our client got the deal done.”
In the future, Ms. LaFollette said she hopes oil prices “will stabilize long enough so activity will be easier to get done.” She added that it is “a challenging time with volatility, and people will be very attuned to watching for and utilizing resources to access money.”
Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP is a leading international law firm with more than 900 lawyers in offices throughout the United States, Europe, Asia and the Middle East.
# # #
People Recognized
