With experience in distressed debt, sub-performing assets, leveraged buyouts, bankruptcy law, and other special situations, the Special Assets Advisory Board helps us seize opportunities that others may overlook.

Melanie Cohen

Board Member

Previously, Melanie Cohen was a partner at Quarles & Brady in Chicago, Illinois, where her areas of interest and practice were commercial and corporate law, including secured transactions, bankruptcy and reorganization. Currently, Ms. Cohen is a senior mediator in alternative dispute resolution.

Ms. Cohen is a panelist and a regular speaker for many organizations including the American, Illinois State and Chicago Bar Associations, Illinois Institute for Continuing Legal Education, National Counsel of Bankruptcy Judges, and the Commercial Law League of America. She has authored numerous articles on various aspects of bankruptcy and lending law, and is active in a number of professional organizations, including the International Insolvency Institute, The International Women’s Insolvency and Restructuring Confederation, Bankruptcy and Reorganization Committee of the Chicago Bar Association, the American Bar Association, the Commercial Law League, the Chicago Counsel of Lawyers, and the Illinois Trial Lawyers Association. Ms. Cohen has served as chairman of the Chicago Bar Association Committee on Bankruptcy and Reorganization, and is a past chairman of the Turnaround Management Association and past president of its Chicago Chapter. She has been an instructor at DePaul University College of Law and The John Marshall Law School, teaching secured transactions, real estate, and debtor-creditor law courses.

Ms. Cohen graduated magna cum laude from the DePaul University College of Law, and received her Artium Baccalaureatus cum laude, with honors in economics from Brandeis University. She served as a law clerk to the Honorable Frederick J. Hertz, bankruptcy judge for the Northern District of Illinois. She has been recognized as a Leading Lawyer and an Illinois Super Lawyer, a Fellow of Brandeis University and a Fellow of the American College of Bankruptcy. 

Judge Erwin Katz

Board Member

Judge Erwin I. Katz retired in 2002, after 14 years as a judge of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Illinois. During the last six months of his term, he also served in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware. In Delaware, he heard major cases for the court as well as meditated cases for other bankruptcy judges. He is a former Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, where he handled civil, criminal, and appellate matters as well as being specially assigned to the organized crime division.

Judge Katz is currently practicing mediation and arbitration nationally. He mediates and arbitrates cases privately and is a member of the national panel of neutrals for the American Arbitration Association, the CPR Institute of Dispute Resolution, and Judicial Dispute Resolution. An ordained rabbi, Judge Katz is also a member of the Bet Din of the Chicago Rabbinical Council.

He is currently trustee of the Unencumbered Assets Trust in the National Century Financial Enterprises case in Columbus, Ohio, where he supervises the administration of approximately $2 billion in securities and fraud claims. He was the administrator of the mediation program for injury case judgments, and was the administrator of the arbitration program in the Kmart bankruptcy estate in Chicago. He has been appointed as the future claimants’ representative in the asbestos case of In Re Artra. He was also the National Mediator for 750 adversaries in the Teligent case pending in the Southern District of New York, and approximately 100 adversaries in the Anicom case in Chicago.

In addition, he has recently completed work as a member of a team of American and Thai lawyers engaged in drafting a new mediation code for the government of Thailand under a grant from the World Bank.

In 2006, Judge Katz was named one of the 500 outstanding private and public judges in the U.S. by Lawdragon Magazine. He was named one of the Outstanding Bankruptcy Judges for 1998 by Turnaround and Workouts Newsletter. He has taught, written, lectured, and moderated for various programs for DePaul University College of Law, the Federal Judicial Center, the Illinois State Bar Association, the Illinois State Courts, the Chicago Bar Association, and the Decalogue Society of Lawyers.

Judge Katz is a former member of the board of directors of the Hebrew Theological College in Skokie, Illinois; a former chairman of the board of the Arie Crown Hebrew Day School in Chicago; a founding chair of the Chicago chapter of the National Jewish Commission on Law and Public Affairs (COLPA); and a member of the Advisory Council for the Chicago Chapter of the National Council of Synagogue Youth (NCSY). Judge Katz has been an honoree of Torah Umesorah and the Hebrew Theological College.

Thomas Lally

Board Member

Tom Lally is currently retired. Previously, he was executive vice president and deputy chief credit officer of Heller Financial, Inc. He was responsible for the credit oversight of Heller’s various lending portfolios, distressed asset portfolio, and as president of Heller Equity Capital Corporation, the company’s direct equity investment portfolio. Prior to assuming these roles, Mr. Lally was executive vice president and manager of corporate asset quality, having previously served as senior vice president and national portfolio manager of the Corporate Finance Group and senior vice president and portfolio manager of the Eastern Leveraged Funding Division. Mr. Lally was with Heller from 1974 through 2001.

Mr. Lally is a past member of the Risk Management Association, the Turnaround Management Association, and the American Bankruptcy Institute. He has participated in a number of industry panels and seminars dealing with all aspects of secured lending, leveraged buyouts, distressed asset management, and bankruptcy. 

Mr. Lally has served on a number of boards of directors and currently sits on the board of Career Education Corporation, a publicly held provider of for-profit post-secondary education. His additional board experience encompasses industries as diverse as private equity investing, commercial printing, multi-region restaurant chains, consumer and industrial products, and retail optical stores. Mr. Lally holds a Bachelor of Business Administration from Pace University.