Mr. Michael Martinez

MICHAEL is a member with the firm and focuses his practice on representing chapter 7 trustees, chapter 11 trustees, debtors-in-possession, creditor committees, other parties in business bankruptcy cases, federal equity receivers, state court receivers, and corporate clients in transactional matters. Recently, he represented a chapter 7 trustee in a large, highly publicized Ponzi scheme case, in which sufficient assets were recovered to pay victims 100% of their losses. He is certified as a Business Bankruptcy Specialist by the North Carolina State Bar and a subchapter V trustee.

Michael is a managing editor of the NCBA’s Bankruptcy Practice Manual and has been published in the ABI Journal. He currently chairs the committee planning NCBA’s Annual Bankruptcy Institute. He previously chaired the Continuing Legal Education Committee for the Mecklenburg County Bar, as well as its Bar Leadership Institute Committee (and was a graduate of the program) and its Communications Committee, and he chaired NCBA’s Bankruptcy Seminar Committee and the Western North Carolina Bankruptcy Seminar Committee.

Michael was named a “North Carolina Rising Star” in the area of Business Bankruptcy by Super Lawyers in 2018, 2019 and 2020. He also has been recognized for his pro bono representation of consumer debtors by being inducted into the inaugural Supreme Court of North Carolina Pro Bono Society in 2016, receiving the Outstanding Pro Bono Service Award from Legal Services of the Southern Piedmont in 2013, and receiving the Outstanding Achievement in Pro Bono Award from the N.C. Bar Association Bankruptcy Section in 2018. Outside of helping consumer debtors, he is a youth basketball coach and founded a pro bono initiative in Charlotte to assist terminal cancer patients with end-of-life planning, particularly immigrant parents leaving being orphaned children.