Lecturer Bios
David Henry Hartheimer, Esq.
David H. Hartheimer is a nationally recognized expert in the restructuring industry. For almost 30
years he has focused on special situations both in the public and private sector. David was the
founder and President of the investment banking firm, Clearbid Capital LLC. David has completed
over 50 sales, asset disposition transactions and restructuring transactions as a principal or advisor,
both in North America and Latin America. David has deep experience in structuring and
negotiating complex sales, financings and workouts, both for himself and his clients. This
experience has exposed him to a wide variety of corporate and securities structures and money
raising formats, and he is well-equipped to advise clients with respect to both the business
practicalities and legal aspects of same.
David is a founding Member of the law firm of Mayerson & Hartheimer, PLLC, a boutique which
specializes in complex corporate transactions, commercial litigation, restructuring and insolvency.
David has represented parties, including the United States, in hundreds of chapters 7 and 11
bankruptcy cases. David is an expert in the restructuring and sale of middle-market companies.
David has extensive experience in a wide variety of litigation, including appeals, preference and
fraudulent conveyance actions, applications for the appointment of trustees, equitable
subordination of claims, assumption and rejection of contracts and other claims that arise in the
debtor- creditor context. He has represented developers in real estate bankruptcies and workouts,
where he has negotiated and drafted cash collateral orders as well as plans of reorganization.
David began his career as a law clerk for the Assignment Judge of Hudson County, New Jersey.
After his clerkship, David became an associate at the law firm of Shea and Gould where he
conducted various types of litigation in the state and federal courts. David then spent seven years
as a Senior Attorney at the United States Department of Justice, Office of the United States Trustee,
in the Eastern District of New York, where he represented the public interest overseeing hundreds
of chapter 7 and chapter 11 matters, as well as working closely with the panel of chapter 7 trustees.
In this capacity, David reviewed many hundreds of fee applications and filed objections and reports
to the court, making recommendations on allowability and amounts to be awarded.
David left the Department of Justice in 2000 to found his private equity firm, Clearbid Capital,
specializing in the acquisition and sale of tangible assets from distress situations. Clearbid Capital
had over $70 million in assets under management. Concurrently with Clearbid, David became a
partner in a small boutique law firm in New York from 2009 to 2011, then became Of Counsel at
Wilk Auslander in 2013. In 2016, David left Wilk Auslander to start the law firm of Mayerson
& Hartheimer, PLLC.
David has been recognized as an expert in bankruptcy law by Superlawyers.
Sandra E. Mayerson, Esq.
Sandra E. Mayerson was in the first class of women at Yale University, and has been breaking
records ever since. Sandra founded the bankruptcy department at Kirkland & Ellis, a national
powerhouse in bankruptcy; was one of the first women to be an international department head at
an AmLaw 100 law firm; has been proclaimed by the National Law Journal as one of the Top 50
Women Litigators in the U.S.; and is recognized in Best Lawyers in America as one of the top
insolvency lawyers in the country.
Sandra has extensive experience in both corporate/securities matters and commercial litigation,
but is best known for her work in insolvency, where she has represented creditor and bondholder
committees, boards of directors and their special committees, banks and other secured creditors,
investors in distress situations, trustees, indenture trustees and claims traders; however, her
specialty is representing debtors in chapter 11, which she has done in courts throughout the country.
Sandra’s background spans both bankruptcy and corporate/securities laws and is informed by years
of “Big Law” private practice, as well as involvement in public policy formation. She is often
cited in legal opinions for her work in the domain of fraudulent conveyances. Sandra served as
Examiner in the Interco chapter 11 for which she wrote a landmark report on fraudulent
conveyance law. She has also done groundbreaking work in the field of customer claims in
securities firm insolvencies as part of the Refco case. As lead counsel to numerous global debtors,
Sandra is well-versed in cross-border transactions.
Sandra brings a unique perspective to business matters from having worked both in-house and as
outside counsel. She has been a partner in the law firms of Kirkland & Ellis; Kelley Drye &
Warren; McDermott, Will & Emery; Holland and Knight; and Squire Sanders. She has also been
in-house counsel to a publicly-held global manufacturing firm, a real estate syndication firm and
a family of insurance and annuity companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange. Her work
in-house included securities compliance and registration, corporate governance, M & A, corporate
transactions, insolvency and litigation supervision.
Sandra has lectured and published nationally and internationally on corporate and insolvency
topics, as well as on women in the workplace. She has long been recognized for her leadership in
mentorship of women in the legal practice, and has chaired many subcommittees for the American
Bar Association. Among other things, Sandra has been recognized for her preeminence in
insolvency by New York Superlawyers; Working Women Magazine, which identified her as one
of the “five Best in Bankruptcy”; Crain’s “Forty Under Forty”; Fortune Magazine’s “Rising Stars”;
and Latin Lawyers for her cross-border transactions in South America. She is an Associate Fellow
of Branford College at Yale University.
In 2016, Sandra founded the law firm of Mayerson & Hartheimer, PLLC, together with David
Hartheimer. Mayerson & Hartheimer is a boutique firm specializing in restructuring and
insolvency. Although small, the firm has 500 Fortune clients and has represented debtors in
complex international matters. The firm is dedicated to truly partnering with its clients and
offering the type of personalized, responsive service that is all too rare in the legal community.
