Brittany Michael

BRITTANY is Of Counsel at Pachulski Stang Ziehl & Jones, where she has successfully represented creditors’ committees, debtors and large commercial creditors in complex chapter 11 cases, including extensive experience in representing committees of child sexual abuse survivors in such mass tort bankruptcy cases as the Archdiocese of San Francisco, Diocese of Rockville Centre, Diocese of Rochester, Diocese of Buffalo, Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, Archdiocese of Agaña, the Diocese of New Ulm and the Diocese of Winona. Due to her team’s work on the Catholic Diocese cases, they were named Minnesota Lawyers of the Year.

Brittany was a 2022 International Women’s Insolvency & Restructuring Confederation (IWIRC) Rising Star Finalist, and in 2019 she received both the Deinard Legal Clinic Award for her commitment to pro bono work, and the Advocates for Human Rights Volunteer Award for her work helping with Somali asylum cases. In addition, she was named “Attorney of the Year” by Minnesota Lawyer in 2018 for her work in representing the creditors’ committee in the chapter 11 case of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis. Among other awards, she received the ABA/Bloomberg BNA Award for Excellence in Labor and Employment Law, the Minnesota Women Lawyers Equal Justice Award and the University of Minnesota Human Rights Law Award. She is a member of the Minnesota and New York state bars, and of IWIRC’s Minneapolis chapter, for which she serves as chair.

Brittany’s background is in the human rights world. After college, she spent a year working for a sustainable development organization in Ecuador, including five months in a rural indigenous community. She then spent four years working at Human Rights Watch in New York, aiding in the research and advocacy of human rights violations around the world. She also served in many leadership roles, including in student government in college, as shop steward for her union at Human Rights Watch, and as editor-in-chief of the ABA Journal of Labor and Employment Law in law school. In addition, she has taught legal writing at the University of Minnesota Law School and volunteers with Credit Abuse Resistance Education (CARE), teaching financial responsibility to high school students. She is a former board member of both the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota and the Northeast Minneapolis Farmers’ Market, and she is a member of the Northeast Investors Cooperative. She also volunteers with the Minnesota Federal Court’s student outreach activities and provides mentorship to law students interested in bankruptcy law.