Maria L. DeOliveira

MARIA is an associate at Brown Rudnick in New York, where her practice focuses on bankruptcy litigation and general litigation matters. She works on major bankruptcy litigation matters and general litigation, and her work focuses on advocating for victims and survivors of mass torts and creditors. She has worked on matters including Kidde-Fenwal, Powin and Exactech. Prior to joining Brown Rudnick, she clerked for Chief Judge Michael B. Kaplan of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of New Jersey. During her clerkship with Chief Judge Kaplan, she was involved with the LTL Management LLC (Johnson & Johnson subsidiary) bankruptcies, involving mass torts, and the In re BlockFi Inc. bankruptcy, involving cryptocurrency. She started her bankruptcy career by clerking for Hon. Rosemary Gambardella of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of New Jersey and for Hon. Jaclyn Medina, J.S.C. of Superior Court of New Jersey – Bergen County. She earned her M.B.A. while working full time in the medical device and hospital industries.

Maria serves on the board of the International Women’s Insolvency & Restructuring Confederation of New Jersey and was selected to participate in ABI’s Diversity and Inclusion Mentoring Program. She also has been appointed by the Supreme Court of New Jersey to serve on its District VA Fee Arbitration Committee. During law school, she represented and advocated on behalf of children with disabilities as a clinical law student in its Education and Health Law Clinic. For her community involvement, she received the Congressional Award Gold Medal, the U.S. Congress’s highest honor for youth.

The proud granddaughter of Portuguese immigrants, Maria’s success is attributable to her parents’ and grandparents’ belief in family, hard work, education, perseverance and faith. As a child, she learned first-hand about managing businesses from her grandparents, who had a small store in the Ironbound section of Newark, N.J., and from her parents’ business. From this, she learned the importance of being connected to a community and family, working hard and the economics of managing a business. Today, she mentors incoming attorneys and maintains an active pro bono practice.