Meet the Newest Pick for the Delaware Bankruptcy Bench

Nearly a decade ago, attorney Laurie Selber Silverstein played a role in naming four new judges to sit on the Delaware bankruptcy bar in the largest expansion of the court’s history. Soon, Ms. Silverstein could sit alongside the judges she helped select.

The Third U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said last week that it’s vetting Ms. Silverstein, 54, to become the next bankruptcy judge in Wilmington, Del. If selected, Ms. Silverstein will fill a vacancy created when Judge Peter Walsh retires at the end of the year from one of the nation’s busiest bankruptcy courts.

A longtime fixture on the Delaware bankruptcy scene, Ms. Silverstein, who leads Potter Anderson Corroon’s bankruptcy and corporate restructuring practice, primarily represents creditors and lenders in corporate bankruptcies. She’s worked on the Chapter 11 cases of energy company SemGroup , mortgage lender American Home Mortgage, grocery maker Aurora Foods Inc., and telecommunications company Cable & Wireless.

“She takes a very intellectual approach to the issues that she’s presented with,” Potter Anderson Chairman Donald Wolfe Jr. tells Bankruptcy Beat. “She’s thought of as someone who is a student of the law as much as a practitioner of it.”

Ms. Silverstein’s new gig won’t become official until background checks are conducted by the FBI and IRS, a process that a Third Circuit spokesman said Monday could take three months or longer.

Ms. Silverstein wasn’t available for comment Monday.

Mark Collins, a Delaware bankruptcy lawyer who sat on the judicial selection committee with Ms. Silverstein in 2005, said Monday that she’s a natural choice for the bench.

“She’s very smart, very good in court,” said Mr. Collins, chair of the bankruptcy and restructuring group at Richards, Layton & Finger PA. “She’s a very strong advocate for her clients.”

The influence of Delaware’s bankruptcy bar has grown over the past few decades as more major corporations turn to the jurisdiction to help reorganize through Chapter 11. In 2005, the Third Circuit selected four new judges to create a six-person bench, a much-needed expansion that alleviated the need to have visiting judges rotate through temporary stints on the bench.

In the one-year period ending June 30, the Delaware bankruptcy court handled 730 Chapter 11 business bankruptcies, the most of any court, according to data from the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. The next highest volume of such cases came in the Southern District of New York, which had 484.

Write to Sara Randazzo at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter at @sara_randazzo.