Kathleen DiSanto

KATHLEEN is a shareholder and Bankruptcy Practice Group leader with Bush Ross, P.A., where her practice primarily focuses on bankruptcy and insolvency matters. She also is an experienced litigator in state and federal courts throughout the state of Florida and regularly represents debtors and assists them in navigating business bankruptcy. She has helped more than 30 chapter 11 debtors successfully reorganize, including many closely held family businesses and individuals via the subchapter V process, and she confirmed one of the first subchapter V cases to be filed in the Middle District of Florida. She also is experienced in representing creditors and trustees in bankruptcy, and has specialized expertise in defending trustees on Barton doctrine issues. She was the first clerk to have served for Hon. Caryl E. Delano, Chief Judge of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Middle District of Florida. During law school, she completed a judicial internship with Hon. Alexander L. Paskay and participated in the 2008 Conrad B. Duberstein Bankruptcy Moot Court Competition.

Kathleen is a Florida Supreme Court Certified Circuit Mediator and serves as a Subchapter V trustee in small business cases filed under the Small Business Reorganization Act of 2019. She has been Board Certified in Business Bankruptcy Law by the American Board of Certification since 2014 and serves as a director on its Standards Committee, and she has been rated AV-Preeminent by Martindale-Hubbell since 2015. She also was the youngest president of the Tampa Bay Bankruptcy Bar Association when she served from 2020-21, and she has been listed in The Best Lawyers in America since 2020, as a Florida Super Lawyers “Rising Star” from 2013-22 and “Super Lawyer” in 2023, and as a Florida Trend “Legal Elite Up and Comer” for 2012, 2017, 2018 and 2021. In addition, she serves as a coordinating editor for the ABI Journal, for which she has written numerous articles, and she served in a leadership role with ABI’s Unsecured Trade Creditors Committee from 2017-20.

Outside of the office, Kathleen is an avid runner who has completed more than 35 half marathons and four marathons, often winning age group awards. In addition, she worked with a team of judges and attorneys to create a virtual pro bono clinic for the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Middle District of Florida, spearheading volunteer recruitment efforts. She currently serves as a director on the board of the Middle District of Florida Pro Se Assistance Clinic, Inc., a Florida nonprofit corporation. She also serves as a member of the board of directors for the International Women’s Insolvency & Restructuring Confederation’s Florida Network, for which she plans and directs continuing education and networking events like the Table for 8 series with local judges, and volunteers for community service projects like the Reverse Advent Calendar Food Drive, which collects and donates food to local charities during the holidays.