Ryan Preston Dahl, '07: Honored as One of Law360's Rising Stars in the Category of Bankruptcy
Rising Star: Weil's Ryan Preston Dahl
Weil Gotshal & Manges LLP’s Ryan Preston Dahl has been a standout attorney at his firm for helping advise specialty retailer Claire’s Stores Inc. during its Chapter 11 restructuring, earning him a spot among five bankruptcy law practitioners under age 40 honored by Law360 as Rising Stars.
His biggest case of the year:
Claire’s opened its Chapter 11 in March, saying its 7,500-store beauty products, accessories and ear piercing business was overleveraged and driven into bankruptcy by a $2.1 billion debt load and a tough retail environment.
Dahl said that a confirmation hearing with respect to Claire’s bankruptcy plan is set for September, but that he and his team are also actively marketing the company to see if they can get higher or better value for stakeholders.
He said the retail industry is generally being challenged, and that there are a number of examples where retailers haven’t been able to reorganize successfully.
“And we think the real opportunity for Claire’s is to have a retailer that’s able to successfully emerge as an operating business because Claire’s has a number of stakeholders including many, many employees,” Dahl said. “I think the challenge for us is that we’re taking into account all of those interests and trying to get Claire’s reorganized on the best possible footing.”
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