Virginia Bankruptcy Judge Kevin R. Huennekens praised the Firm’s client, Trustee Gerard McHale, Jr., and his legal team, led by GEAB&P, for “having hit it out of the park” in securing $317 million in recoveries to compensate customers of LandAmerica Exchange Services (“LES”), who lost money, in some cases their entire life savings, due to LES’s bankruptcy. Senior litigation partner Michael Devorkin and Jonathan Flaxer, head of the Firm’s Bankruptcy Group, led the Firm’s efforts on behalf of the LES Trustee.
In approving a motion made by the Oversight Committee representing the LES victims to pay bonus fees to GEAB&P, the Trustee, and other members of the legal team, the Judge found there were 100% recoveries of the victims’ lost funds, plus 66% recoveries for their consequential damages. Before recoveries, the victims had lost substantial amounts deposited for safe-keeping with LES to complete real estate exchanges under Section 1031 of the tax code.
Describing the legal professionals as “extremely capable,” Judge Huennekens said at the outset of the case, any such recovery was a “pipe dream” that he never anticipated, and that the result was a “huge success” that he attributed directly to the strategies that Mr. McHale and GEAB&P and their colleagues had devised and implemented, which he called “masterful.”