Akin Gump Restructuring Partner Arik Preis Named a Law360 Bankruptcy MVP

(New York) – Akin Gump is pleased to share that financial restructuring partner Arik Preis has been selected as a 2022 Bankruptcy MVP.

In the profile published by Law360 on the occasion, Mr. Preis is noted as having spent recent years on behalf of personal injury claimants in opioid and sexual abuse mass tort bankruptcies and as having won “both monetary and moral victories for his constituents.”

Mr. Preis noted as his biggest accomplishment this year his representation of claimants in the bankruptcy cases of opioid manufacturers Purdue Pharma, Mallinckrodt PLC and Insys Therapeutics. Among the deals reached in the Purdue case was a unique opportunity for victims to directly address Purdue’s owners, members of the Sackler family: “That's not a form of compensation that can be monetized or is worth anything in a bankruptcy outside the opioid space. Inside the opioid space, it was a major day.” More than 26 individuals told their stories of the impact of the opioid crisis on their families to two representatives of the Sackler family: “That was one of my proudest moments and biggest accomplishments.”

His biggest challenge, he noted, came in his representation of the Coalition of Abused Scouts for Justice, as he sought to secure nonmonetary relief in an area of the law that is geared toward financial compensation: “These are just different cases. You have to approach them differently. You have to think of what's important to them.” He, along with Akin Gump colleagues, worked to form an abuse survivors working group to work with the Boy Scouts to develop programs to protect children from future abuse: “They all felt ridiculously empowered. Some of them said it was the most important thing they'd ever done in their entire lives. For years they felt helpless and that they could do nothing about what happened to them. Now they felt like they could get past that and do something good for the future.”

Mr. Preis shared his advice for junior lawyers: Always pay attention to the details of any task. He noted, “It shows that you care, but it also is a skill that then translates to later on — analyzing things when you're strategizing, remembering details and thinking about each specific thing. It translates into all the other things you eventually do as a lawyer.”

Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP is a leading international law firm with more than 900 lawyers in offices throughout the United States, Europe, Asia and the Middle East.

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