Biography
John J. Monaghan is an attorney in Holland & Knight's Boston office and serves as the co-national practice group leader of the firm's Bankruptcy, Restructuring and Creditors' Rights Practice Group. Mr. Monaghan is particularly focused on representing major case participants in complex commercial insolvency and restructuring matters, with a particular focus on Chapter 11 cases. He represents both U.S.-based companies and non-U.S. companies in both in-court and out-of-court domestic and cross-border insolvency proceedings. Mr. Monaghan's creditor representations focus on matters involving senior lenders, both in syndicated and bilateral deals. He also has extensive experience representing creditors' committees, equity committees, purchasers of assets, landlords, licensors, trustees, parties to prepetition contracts and leases, litigants in adversary proceedings and unsecured creditors. His experience crosses a broad array of industries, including finance, manufacturing, construction, real estate, higher education, energy, technology, telecommunications, retail, healthcare, resort and hospitality, franchise, food service, leasing, maritime and aviation. He advises clients on the business aspects of bankruptcy and workouts, and represents clients in matters in bankruptcy court, as well as in other state and federal courts.
Mr. Monaghan has extensive experience advising for-profit and not-for-profit boards in connection with governance issues, as well as in litigating director and officer fiduciary duty issues for estate representatives and for directors and officers. Mr. Monaghan's litigation experience also includes defending and prosecuting fraudulent transfer and other avoidance actions.
Matters in which Mr. Monaghan has been lead counsel have resulted in the issuance of more than 30 published opinions on topics ranging from the impact of rights of first refusal on sales under a plan of reorganization to the constitutional authority of bankruptcy courts to enter final monetary judgments in fraud cases. He has been named as a top bankruptcy lawyer by numerous ranking publications, and in 2008, Mr. Monaghan was inducted as a fellow in the American College of Bankruptcy (ACB) – a professional, educational and honorary association whose membership is limited to those in the profession who exemplify the highest standards of professional and ethical standards. In 2010, he was named as a fellow of the American Bar Foundation (ABF). Mr. Monaghan was also named to the International Insolvency Institute (III) in 2016, an invitation-only institution consisting of the top cross-border financial industry professionals in the world.
A frequent lecturer on bankruptcy issues, Mr. Monaghan has presented seminars on the Bankruptcy Code safe harbors for financial industry transactions, the fiduciary duties of not-for-profit officers and directors in higher education, litigating contested plan confirmation proceedings, the purchaser's perspective in transactions with a Chapter 11 debtor, cross-border issues in energy industry insolvencies, and maritime insolvency issues for organizations, including the American Bankruptcy Institute (ABI), the National Conference of Bankruptcy Judges (NCBJ), the International Bar Association (IBA), Marine Money and the Association of Insolvency and Restructuring Advisors (AIRA).