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Eric R. Goodman

Eric Goodman’s practice focuses on bankruptcy, creditors’ rights, financial restructuring and commercial litigation. He has a broad range of experience in a number of industries, including automotive, banking, healthcare, mining and transportation, steel, retail, airlines, energy and manufacturing.

Mr. Goodman has represented corporate debtors and secured and unsecured creditors in both transactional and litigation-related engagements. His transactional experience includes participating in drafting and implementing chapter 11 plans of reorganization, representing clients in their attempts to purchase distressed companies and related assets out of chapter 11 proceedings and representing secured creditors in bankruptcy and workouts. His bankruptcy-related litigation experience includes numerous adversary proceedings and contested matters involving preference actions, fraudulent transfers, piercing the corporate veil, breach of fiduciary duty actions, claim subordination and recharacterization, executory contract rejection and assumption disputes, claims objections and various disputes involving creditors’ and bondholders’ committees.

Some of Mr. Goodman’s recent representations include the following:

• Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation in chapter 7 proceeding of IndyMac Bancorp, Inc. in the Central District of California
• Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation in chapter 11 proceedings of AmTrust Financial Corporation and its affiliated debtors and debtors in possession in the Northern District of Ohio
• Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors of Commercial Alloys Corporation, aluminum recycler, in chapter 11 proceedings in the Northern District of Ohio
• Excello Engineered Systems, LLC, chapter 11 filing of automotive parts supplier in the Northern District of Ohio
• CEP Holdings, LLC, confirmation of joint plan of liquidation for automotive parts supplier with 11 plants in the United States and Mexico, in chapter 11 proceedings in the Northern District of Ohio
• DTR Industries, Inc. & DTR Tennessee, Inc., as secured creditors and suppliers in the chapter 11 case of Johnson Rubber Company, Inc., an automotive parts supplier, in chapter 11 proceedings in the Northern District of Ohio
• PNC National Bank, as agent in the chapter 11 case of Mayco Plastics Company, an automotive parts supplier, in chapter 11 proceedings in the Eastern District of Michigan

Mr. Goodman is a contributing author to Inside the Minds: Creditors’ Rights in Chapter 11 Cases, 2012 ed., and the Second Edition of Bankruptcy Business Acquisitions, a comprehensive guide to selling and acquiring assets in bankruptcy. He has also published several articles in professional and legal journals on bankruptcy issues, including:

• “Reclamation Claims and the Rights of Secured Creditors—Sixth Circuit Holds That Secured Creditors Cannot Defeat the Rights of Reclamation Creditors Under the U.C.C.,” co-author, Uniform Commercial Code Law Journal, Volume 42, Issue 2 (February 2010)
• “Bankruptcy Court Holds that Postpetition Loan Participation Is Not a Form of Cover Under the Uniform Commercial Code,” co-author, Pratt’s Journal of Bankruptcy Law, Volume 4, No. 6 (September 2008)
• “Reinstatement v. Cramdown: Do Secured Creditors Win or Lose?” co-author, Norton J. Bankr. L & Practice, Volume 16, No. 4 (August 2007)
• “Debtors Beware: The Expanding Universe of Non-Assumable / Non-Assignable Contracts in Bankruptcy,” co-author, 13 Am. Bankr. Inst. L. Rev. 187 (2005)
• “Determining the Proper Application of Section 546(c) to a Seller’s Right to Reclaim When There is a Prior Secured Creditor: A Two Part Test,” 20 Emory Bankr. Dev. J. 427 (2004)

From 2003 to 2004, Mr. Goodman served as law clerk to the Honorable William T. Bodoh, Chief Judge, United States Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Ohio and Bankruptcy Appellate Panel of the Sixth Circuit. He is a member of the Ohio State and Cleveland Metropolitan Bar Associations, the American Bankruptcy Institute and the Turnaround Management Association. He is also a member of the Board of Directors of The Littlest Heroes®, a nonprofit organization serving children with cancer and their families in Northeast Ohio communities. In addition, Mr. Goodman sits on the Board of Trustees of the Cleveland Metropolitan Bar Foundation, the charitable arm of the Cleveland Metropolitan Bar Association.