Throughout his career, Berry Spears has been acknowledged as a successful legal practitioner with unique skills and savvy business insight. He has a broad background of experience and has represented clients in restructuring matters in numerous industries and commercial sectors, including telecommunications, real estate, retail, distribution, food services, manufacturing, and oil and gas. He regularly represents major financial institutions in nationally syndicated credits and restructurings.

While Berry has served companies in various industries, his significant work includes:

• experience in the electric utility industry, working with cooperatives and independent power producers in a variety of matters;
• leading 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;
• serving as debtors' counsel in the largest bankruptcy case ever filed in the state of Texas with debt of over $10 billion;
• representing a major drilling contractor with operations in the Gulf of Mexico in its Chapter 11 filing; and
• counseling a major energy company who has been sued in a fraudulent conveyance action for over $1.7 billion.

• 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

• American College of Bankruptcy
  • Strategic Planning Committee (2009 - 2011)
  • Fifth Circuit Council (2011)
• American Bankruptcy Institute (ABI) - Sustaining Member
  • Real Estate Committee, Co-Chair (2007 - 2010)
  • National Bankruptcy Rules Task Force (2006)
  • Unsecured Trade Creditors' Committee, Co-Chair (2003 - 2005)
• International Bar Association (IBA) - Section on Insolvency, Restructuring Creditors' Rights
  • Enforcement of Creditors' Rights Subcommittee, Vice Chair (2009 - 2010)
• State Bar of Texas
  • Bankruptcy Law Section - Chair (2008 - 2009)
  • Executive Council member (2004 - 2010)
• American Bar Association
• Houston Bar Association
• Austin Bar Association

• Chambers & Partners USA, "America's Leading Business Lawyers," Bankruptcy
• The Best Lawyers in America, Bankruptcy and Creditor-Debtor Rights Law
• "Texas Super Lawyer," Bankruptcy and Workouts, Law & Politics (2003 - 2011)
• "Top 100 Attorneys in Houston" (2010)
• "Top 100 Attorneys in Texas" (2008)
• "Central Texas' Top 50 Attorneys" (2003 - 2008)
• Texas Bar Foundation, Fellow

• Co-author, "Seventh Circuit Protects Creditor’s Choice To Gamble on Real Estate Over U.S. Treasuries," Fulbright Briefing, February 8, 2012
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1982 - J.D., The University of Texas School of Law
1979 - B.A., Political Science and Business, Austin College (Sherman, Texas)

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 (2004 - 2011)
• Chaps Club, former Board of Directors
• Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd
• Capital Area/United Way, Austin, Texas, former Board of Directors and Executive Committee