Deborah L. Thorne is a partner in the Chicago office of Barnes & Thornburg LLP and a member of the Finance, Insolvency and Restructuring Department. Ms. Thorne concentrates her practice in the areas of bankruptcy, corporate restructuring, secured lending and insolvency law. She has experience representing trade vendors, unsecured creditors’ committees, debtors, lenders, lessors and other parties in interest in some of the largest and most complex restructuring matters, including United Airlines, Kmart, Delphi, Plastech and Meridian. Ms. Thorne has served as a federal equity receiver in CFTC v. Edward R. Velazquez and CFTC v. Raleigh Capital Management, Inc. and has represented other federal court appointed receivers in matters involving securities and commodity fraud.
Ms. Thorne is a frequent lecturer and has written articles for numerous legal and business publications, including the National Association of Credit Management’s (NACM) Business Credit Magazine and the ABI Journal. She is a contributing editor of the NACM’s Credit Manual and has written or co-authored treatises including Preference Defense Handbook: The Circuits Compared, Auto Supplier Insolvencies & Bankruptcies and Interrupted: Bankruptcy’s Effects on Supply Chains, all published by the American Bankruptcy Institute.
Ms. Thorne has served as Chair of the Chicago Bar Associations’ Bankruptcy Committee, the Seventh Circuit Bar Association’s Bankruptcy Committee, and the ABI’s Unsecured Trade Creditors’ Committee and was previously a member of the Board of Governors of the Chicago Council of Lawyers. She is currently a member of the Board of Directors of the American Bankruptcy Institute and previously served as a member of the Editorial Board of the ABI Journal. She is a member of the National Association of Federal Equity Receivers (NAFER). Ms. Thorne was recently selected as a member of Class 24 of the American College of Bankruptcy and will be inducted as a Fellow on March 15, 2013.
Ms. Thorne is a Fellow of the American College of Bankruptcy, which recognizes attorneys for their "professional excellence and exceptional contributions" to the fields of bankruptcy and insolvency. She also is included in The Best Lawyers in America in the area of bankruptcy and creditor-debtor rights law, is recognized as a Leading Lawyer in Illinois and has been recognized by Illinois Super Lawyers every year since 2005.
Ms. Thorne is a past president of the Evanston United Way Board and past board member of the United Way of Suburban Chicago. She currently serves as chair of the board of Women Employed in Chicago.
Ms. Thorne received her B.A. in history from Macalester College, her M.A.T. from Duke University and J.D. with honors from the Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago Kent College of Law. She is admitted to practice before all Illinois state courts, the U.S. District Courts for the Northern District of Illinois, the Northern and Southern Districts of Indiana, and Western District of Michigan.