Cravath’s Levin to Join Jenner & Block

Richard Levin, who founded Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP’s restructuring practice eight years ago, is changing firms as he approaches the firm’s retirement age.

Mr. Levin, 64, plans to join Chicago’s Jenner & Block next week to help build the firm’s two-partner New York restructuring practice, focused on representing creditors, debtors and trustees in bankruptcies and debt restructurings. Cravath enforces a retirement age of 65.

“I’ve been doing this for 40 years, and I’ve never been bored,” Mr. Levin said. “It’s always something new, always some twist, always some challenge.”

Mr. Levin served as counsel to a subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee from 1975 to 1978, where he was one of the main authors of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code and Bankruptcy Reform Act in 1978. Cravath hired him in 2007 from Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom–just the third time since 1944 the firm had hired a partner from an outside firm, according to a Wall Street Journal report at the time.

Mr. Levin recently represented the Detroit Institute of Arts in the city’s 2013 bankruptcy. He advised General Motors’ independent directors on the auto maker’s 2009 Chapter 11 filing and Credit Suisse Group AG in the Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. bankruptcy.

“We are grateful to Rich for his years of service to our Firm, and we wish him the very best as he takes this next step in his career,” Cravath presiding partner C. Allen Parker said in an emailed statement.

Corporate bankruptcy activity has slumped in recent years, thanks to steady improvement in the U.S. economy and historically low interest rates that have made it relatively easy for even the riskiest companies to borrow.

Commercial bankruptcy filings fell 22% in 2014 from a year earlier, according to data from bankruptcy services provider Epiq Systems Inc. compiled by the American Bankruptcy Institute, a trade group.

Nevertheless, the past year’s tumble in oil prices has some expecting a larger pipeline of energy deals. An increase in interest rates could also further strain financially weak companies.

“The bankruptcy market is still soft, but it is cyclical and it will come back,” said Vincent Lazar, co-chair of Jenner’s bankruptcy litigation practice. “If you’re looking at doing your hiring once you’re in the boom, then you’re too late.”