Lecturer Bios
Rabbi Yona Reiss, Esq.
Rabbi Reiss is the Av Beth Din of the Chicago Rabbinical Council, a Rosh Yeshiva at RIETS, and Chaver Beth Din at the Beth Din of America. A Yadin Yadin musmach of RIETS and an attorney who was an associate for six years at the international law firm of Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton, Rabbi Reiss is a graduate of Yale Law School, where he served as a senior editor of the Yale Law Journal. He was previously the Max and Marion Grill Dean of RIETS, and before that he served as Director of the Beth Din of America. Rabbi Reiss is a member of the editorial board of Tradition, and has published articles in the Wall Street Journal and the New York Law Journal.
Benjamin S. Kaminetzky, Esq.
As a partner in Davis Polk’s Litigation Department, Mr. Kaminetzky divides his time between bankruptcy litigation and complex commercial litigation. He has represented financial institutions and large corporations, such as Morgan Stanley, in commercial litigation, and major lenders and creditors, such as Citi, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Bank Leumi in some of their most complex bankruptcies and reorganizations.
As one of the most experienced and accomplished bankruptcy litigators in the country, Mr. Kaminetzky has been at the forefront of some of the most important complex bankruptcy trials around the country involving leveraged buyouts, labor and pension disputes, fraudulent transfers and preferences. He was the lead litigator in multi-week bankruptcy trials alleging fraudulent transfers in the LBO context in Chapter 11 proceedings of LyondellBasell and Tribune, and in contentious litigations and trials for Debtors Patriot Coal, Frontier Airlines and Delta Air Lines and in a $2 billion contractual dispute relating to the Peabody Coal bankruptcy in St. Louis.
In his commercial practice, Mr. Kaminetzky has represented both foreign and domestic entities in federal and state cases around the country as well as ICC, AAA and FINRA arbitrations. He recently achieved complete dismissal (affirmed on appeal) for Morgan Stanley related to a Latin American telecommunications consortium in a case seeking over $1 billion in damages. He also publishes on litigation involving complex valuation and insolvency issues.
