Michael H. Reed
Michael H. Reed is a partner in the Philadelphia office of Pepper Hamilton LLP. He is a member of the firm’s Corporate Restructuring and Bankruptcy Practice Group and concentrates his practice in the field of bankruptcy and insolvency law. He is a fellow of the American College of Bankruptcy and a member of the American Law Institute.
Mr. Reed is past president of the Pennsylvania Bar Association and was the first person of color to lead the PBA. He previously served as chairman of the House of Delegates of the PBA and as a member of the association’s board of governors.
During 1998-99, Mr. Reed was a member of the Lawyers’ Local Bankruptcy Rules Advisory Committee of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, which helped draft the new local bankruptcy rules adopted for the district effective February 1, 1999. During 1997-98, he served a one-year term as chairman of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania Bankruptcy Conference. Mr. Reed served on two bankruptcy judge merit selection committees for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, to which he was appointed by the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, during 1992-93 and 2000, when he also chaired the committee.
Active in the Business Bankruptcy Committee of the American Bar Association’s Section of Business Law, Mr. Reed chairs its Subcommittee on Bankruptcy Committees, and he previously chaired the Subcommittee on Avoiding Powers, the Subcommittee on Mass Tort and Environmental Claims and the Subcommittee on Labor and Employment Law. Mr. Reed also serves on the Publications Board of the Section of Business Law, is a member of the ABA’s House of Delegates, serves on the ABA’s Standing Committee on Bar Activities and Services, and previously served on the ABA’s Presidential Advisory Council on Diversity in the Profession.
Mr. Reed is a past member of the Pennsylvania Judicial Inquiry & Review Board and a former chairman of the Professional Guidance (Ethics) Committee of the Philadelphia Bar Association. He has served as a member of the Executive Committee of the Young Lawyers’ Section of the Philadelphia Bar Association and as first vice president of the Barristers’ Association of Philadelphia. In 2004, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court appointed Mr. Reed to a three-year term on the Pennsylvania Interest on Lawyers Trust Account (IOLTA) Board.
Mr. Reed lectures nationally and regionally on bankruptcy matters and has been an adjunct professor at Temple Law School (1989; bankruptcy) and Rutgers-Camden Law School (1983, 1985; bankruptcy and secured transactions).
Mr. Reed is highly ranked in Chambers USA: America’s Leading Lawyers for Business and is listed in The Best Lawyers in America. He has written many articles, including:
- “Insulating Asset Purchasers from Debt Through Bankruptcy Sales,” 15 J. Bankr. L. & Prac. 743 (2006)
- “The Effect of the Bankruptcy Preference Statute (Including the Recent Amendments) In the Commercial Setting,” 1 Bloomberg Corp. L.J. 297 (2006)
- “Successor Liability and Bankruptcy Sales Revisited – A New Paradigm,” 61 Bus. Law. 179 (November 2005)
- “Special Purpose Entities in a Post-Enron World,” The American Banker (July/August 2003)
- “The Discharge of Environmental Claims in Bankruptcy,” 48 Pract. Law 33 (October 2002)
- “Successor Liability and Bankruptcy Sales,” 51 Bus. Law. 653 (May 1996)
- “Subject Matter Jurisdiction, Abstention and Removal Under the New Federal Bankruptcy Law,” 56 Am. Bankr. Law J., 121 (1982).
Mr. Reed serves as vice chairman of the board of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, is a member of the Committee of Seventy and previously served on the boards of The Public Interest Law Center of Philadelphia and The Episcopal Hospital of Philadelphia. He currently serves as a member of the board of directors of the United Way of Southeastern Pennsylvania.
Mr. Reed has been recognized with a number of awards and honors. He has received:
- the J. Austin Norris Award from the Barristers’ Association of Philadelphia for distinguished service to the Pennsylvania bar (April 2005)
- a Citation from the Mayor and the City of Philadelphia for Outstanding Service to the Citizens of Philadelphia (April 2005)
- a Resolution from the Philadelphia City Council honoring him as the first African-American president of the Pennsylvania Bar Association (September 2004)
- recognition as one of the five leading African-American bankruptcy attorneys in the United States in a survey conducted by Black Enterprise magazine (November 2003)
- the Award of Excellence from the Thurgood Marshall Scholarship Fund, Inc. (March 2003)
- a Certificate of Honor as the 1995 Alumnus of the Year from the College of Arts & Sciences of Temple University (May 1995).
A native of Philadelphia, Mr. Reed joined the firm in 1972 and was elected a partner in 1980. He was admitted to the bar of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania in 1972.
Mr. Reed is married to Yalta Gilmore-Reed. The Reeds have two children, Alexandra and Michael, Jr.
Education
B.A. 1969 Temple University
J.D. 1972 Yale Law School
Bar Admissions
Admitted to practice in Pennsylvania
