Effective July 1, 2022, upon the retirement of Judge Robert Drain, Judge Drain’s cases, with the exception of any adversary proceedings or contested matters where notice is given to the contrary, will be transferred to Judge Sean Lane. Transferred cases include In re Purdue Pharma, LLC; In re Sears Holdings Corp.; In re 96 Wythe Acquisition; In re Gateway Development Corp., etc. Parties wishing to schedule matters after June 30, 2022 in cases and proceedings presided over by Judge Drain should contact Judge Lane’s chambers.
Staff Information
300 Quarropas Street
White Plains, NY 10601-4140
Chambers: (914) 467-7246
Courtroom Deputy:
(914) 467-7091
Law Clerk: Jacqueline Tran
(914) 467-7089
Law Clerk: Taylor Jones
(914) 467-7093
Law Clerk:
(914) 467-7090
Participants are required to register their appearance by 4:00 PM the day before any scheduled Zoom® hearing with our new eCourt Appearances tool.
Please be advised that all correspondence directed to Judge Drain that is not filed electronically must be submitted to the Court via hard copy letter so that it can be entered on the docket. Please forward all correspondence to the following address:
U.S. Bankruptcy Court
for the Southern District of New York
300 Quarropas Street
White Plains, New York 10601
Judge Tabs
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Participants are required to register their appearance by 4:00 PM the day before any scheduled Zoom® hearing with our new eCourt Appearances tool.
Robert Drain is a United States Bankruptcy Judge for the Southern District of New York.
Judge Drain received his B.A. degree cum laude with honors from Yale University in 1979 and his J.D. degree in 1984 from the Columbia University School of Law, where he was a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar for three years.
At the time of his appointment in 2002, he was a partner in the Bankruptcy Department of the New York law firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, where he represented debtors, trustees, secured and unsecured creditors, official and unofficial creditors committees, and buyers of distressed businesses and distressed debt in chapter 11 cases, out-of-court restructurings and bankruptcy-related litigation and also was actively involved in several transnational insolvency matters.
Judge Drain is a fellow of the American College of Bankruptcy and a member and board member of the American Bankruptcy Institute, a member of the International Insolvency Institute, a member and former Secretary of the National Conference of Bankruptcy Judges and a founding member and chair of the Judicial Insolvency Network. He also is the current chair of the Bankruptcy Judges Advisory Group established through the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts and was appointed to the FDIC’s Systemic Resolution Advisory Committee through May 1, 2021. He was an adjunct professor for several years at St. John’s University School of Law’s LLM in Bankruptcy Program and currently is an adjunct professor at Pace University School of Law and has lectured and written on numerous bankruptcy-related topics.
Since his appointment he has presided over such chapter 11 cases as Loral, RCN, Cornerstone, Refco, Allegiance Telecom, Delphi, Coudert Brothers, Frontier Airlines, Star Tribune, Reader’s Digest, A&P, Hostess Brands, Christian Brothers, Momentive, Cenveo, 21st Century Oncology, Tops, G A&T, Sears, Standard Amusements (Playland), Full Beauty Brands, Sungard, Windstream, Purdue Pharma, Jason Industries, OneWeb, and Frontier Communications. He also has presided over the ancillary or plenary cases, as the case may be, of Corporacion Durango, Satellites Mexicanas, Parmalat S. p. A. and its affiliated United States debtors, Varig S.A., Yukos (II), SphinX, Galvex Steel, TBS Shipping, Excel Maritime, Nautilus, Landsbanki Islands, Roust and Ultrapetrol. He has served as the court-appointed mediator in a number of chapter 11 cases, including New Page, Cengage, Quicksilver, LightSquared, Molycorp and Breitburn Energy.
He is the author of a novel, The Great Work in the United States of America.