Berry Spears has a broad background of experience and has represented clients in restructuring matters in numerous industries and commercial sectors, including financial institutions, manufacturers, telecommunications, real estate, retail, distribution, food services, and oil and gas. Berry has significant experience in the electric utility industry, including having served as Texas bankruptcy counsel in the successful Chapter 11 reorganization of the only Texas-based electric utility to file for bankruptcy protection, and he has worked with cooperatives and independent power producers in a variety of matters. He also recently led the country's first successful restructuring of a significant "roll-up" in the residential and commercial plumbing, heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) market segment.

Throughout his career, Berry has been acknowledged as a successful legal practitioner with unique skills and savvy business insight. At his prior firm, Berry participated at all levels of firm governance, including having been managing shareholder of the Austin office and having served on the firm's Compensation Committee. He was also the former chair of the Bankruptcy Section and co-chair of the Business Restructuring Practice Group. 

• Corporate restructuring and insolvency cases
• Out-of-court restructuring agreements, plans of reorganization, including "prepackaged" plans and related disclosure statements
• Advising official and ad hoc committees
• Debtor-in-possession financing arrangements
• All aspects of bankruptcy litigation, including avoidance actions (i.e., preference and fraudulent conveyance matters) and all matters pertaining to validity, perfection, priority and enforcement of security interests
• Advising secured and unsecured lenders and creditors
• Counseling with respect to relative rights of agent and other lenders in syndicated multiparty credit facilities, and of lead banks/participants under participation agreements
• Purchasing, selling or liquidating troubled businesses or assets within or outside of bankruptcy cases

• State Bar of Texas
  • Bankruptcy Law Section - Chair
  • Executive Council member
• American Bankruptcy Institute - Sustaining Member
  • Real Estate Committee, Co-Chair (2007 - 2008)
  • National Bankruptcy Rules Task Force (2006)
  • Unsecured Trade Creditors' Committee, Co-Chair (2003 - 2005)
• International Bar Association - Section on Insolvency, Restructuring Creditors' Rights
  • Enforcement of Creditors' Rights Subcommittee, Vice Chair
• American Bar Association
• Austin Bar Association
• Houston Bar Association
• Turnaround Management Association (TMA)

• American College of Bankruptcy
• Best Lawyers in America
• Chambers & Partners USA, "America's Leading Business Lawyers," Bankruptcy
• "Texas Super Lawyer," Bankruptcy and Workouts, Texas Monthly magazine (2003 - 2007)
• "Central Texas' Top 50 Attorneys," Texas Monthly magazine (2003 - 2006)
• Texas Bar Foundation, Fellow

1982 - J.D., The University of Texas School of Law
1979 - B.A., Austin College

Berry is admitted to the United States District Courts for the Northern, Southern, Eastern and Western Districts of Texas, the United States Courts of Appeals for the Fifth and Eleventh Circuits and the United States Supreme Court.

• The Helping Hand Home for Children, Advisory Board
• Chaps Club, Board of Directors (2004 - 2005)
• Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd, Associate Vestry (2002)
• Capital Area/United Way, Austin, Texas, Board of Directors and Executive Committee (1993-1998)