Burton R. Lifland is the former chief, and currently, Bankruptcy Judge of the Southern District of New York and former Chief Judge of the Bankruptcy Appellate Panel for the Second Circuit. At the time of his appointment as a Bankruptcy Judge in 1980 he was a private legal practitioner in New York.

Judge Lifland earned his B.A. degree from Syracuse University in 1951 and his J.D. from Fordham University School of Law in 1954.

Prior to his judicial appointment in 1980, he practiced law with the firms of Lifland, Marcus & Angel; Levy, Levy & Ruback; and Finley, Kumble, Wagner, Heine, Underberg & Casey.

Judge Lifland is a Fellow of the American College of Bankruptcy, a contributing author of Chapter 11 Theory and Practice: A Guide to Reorganization, "Practical Prefile Considerations and Commencement of Case." He is a contributing editor of Norton Bankruptcy Law. Judge Lifland is a member of the U.S. delegation to the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law. He is also a past member of the Judicial Conference Subcommittee on Bankruptcy Case management and a current member of the American Bar Association’s SABRE (Select Advisory Committee on Business Reorganization) as well as a founding member of the International Insolvency Institute. He has been a lecturer at the Practicing Law Institute, and the American Law Institute/American Bankruptcy Institute and other professional institutions.