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Walter Benzija has been
practicing since 1995, with a particular focus on bankruptcy, creditors’ rights and commercial litigation since
1996. Prior to joining Halperin Battaglia & Raicht, Mr. Benzija was a
partner in the New York office of Stevens & Lee, P.C., a large mid-Atlantic
firm. He was also a law clerk to the Honorable Ronald M. Holdaway of the
United States Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims in Washington D.C.
Mr. Benzija has represented nearly every kind of interested
party in commercial bankruptcy cases, including debtors, trustees, examiners,
creditors, committees, insurance companies, purchasers of assets, and financial
institutions in cases like WorldCom, Enron, Ames Department Stores, Service
Merchandise, GC Companies, Inc., and Asia Global Crossing.
Mr. Benzija has a proven track record of success in and
out of the courtroom. He has successfully tried multi-million dollar fraud
and breaches of fiduciary duty cases in both federal district court and bankruptcy
court. He has represented a wide array of sophisticated commercial clients
in cases in New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Florida and Illinois, among other
jurisdictions across the country. Mr. Benzija has also had significant transactional
experience in complex chapter 11 and out-of-court workout situations, including
serving as co-counsel to Chapter 11 debtor govWorks, Inc. (the subject of
the motion picture Startup.com) and HMKR, Inc., formerly known as Homemaker
Industries, Inc.
Mr. Benzija is a graduate of The
College of William and Mary Law School, J.D. 1995, where he was a member
of the Order of the Barristers and the Moot Court Board. He received his
undergraduate B.A. degree in economics from The College of William & Mary,
(Magna Cum Laude, 1992). He is licensed to practice law in New York and New
Jersey and has been admitted to practice before the United States Court of
Appeals for the Second Circuit, the United States District Court for the
Southern and Eastern Districts of New York, and the United States District
Court for the District of New Jersey.
Mr. Benzija is a member of the New
York Bar Association, the New Jersey Bar Association, the American Bankruptcy
Institute (“ABI”), and the
American Bar Association. He co-authored “Spanning the Globe: The Intended
Extraterritorial Reach of the Bankruptcy Code” which was published in
the Spring 2002 edition of the American Bankruptcy Institute Law Review. He
was a panelist at the 2001 ABI Annual Spring Meeting, Washington D.C. lecturing
on the topic of “The Ethical Pitfalls of Turnaround Professionals as
Buyers and Sellers of a Debtor-in-Possession’s Assets.” Contact Walter Benzija: wbenzija@halperinlaw.net
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