Melanie L. Cyganowski joined Otterbourg P.C. as a partner in 2008, after serving a full 14-year term as a Bankruptcy Judge in the Eastern District of New York. From November 29, 2005 through the end of her term, she was the Court’s Chief Judge. Graduating magna cum laude from the School of Law at the State University of New York at Buffalo, Ms. Cyganowski then served as a law clerk to the late Hon. Charles L. Brieant, former Chief Judge in the Southern District of New York. Following her clerkship, Ms. Cyganowski was a litigator at Sullivan & Cromwell, and Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy.
Ms. Cyganowski presently chairs Otterbourg’s Bankruptcy practice. She was lead co-counsel to the Official Committees of Claimants in LTL 1 and LTL 2, and Aearo Technologies (3M); co-counsel to the Ad Hoc Committee of consenting governmental parties in Purdue Pharma, and counsel to the Ad Hoc Committee of States with Acthar-related claims in Mallinckrodt. She has been appointed as Receiver in SEC v. StraightPath Management, SEC v. Platinum Partners, and in ÂCP Investment Group, LP. Her other fiduciary appointments include (a) Chief Restructuring Officer and Temporary Operator of Brooklyn’s Interfaith Medical Center, a 287-bed acute care teaching hospital with ambulatory and out-patients clinics in the surrounding Bed-Stuy neighborhood, and (b) Patient Care Ombudsman in Randolph Health, Promise Healthcare, 21st Century Oncology and California Proton. She has also represented Official Committees of Unsecured Creditors in bankruptcy cases, including L&L Wings, Quirky and Escada. In addition, Ms. Cyganowski has represented the FDIC as Receiver in various bankruptcy cases; has served as the Auditor of Capital One in connection with a consent judgment in a national matter; and is an arbitrator/mediator in numerous disputes, including Drivetrain (Puerto Rico post-confirmation), Madoff, Lehman, Century 21, Quebecor and Metaldyne.
In 2014, Ms. Cyganowski was inducted as a Fellow into the American College of Bankruptcy. An author of numerous articles, she sits on the Editorial Advisory Board of the Norton Journal of Bankruptcy Practice & Law. Ms. Cyganowski is also a Fellow of the American and New York State Bar Foundations, and a retired adjunct professor of law at St. John’s University School of Law.
