Rachel Ehrlich Albanese is a partner based in the New York office, Co-Chair of the Restructuring Group and a member of the Liability Management & Special Situations team. Her practice focuses on advising debtors, secured and unsecured creditors, equity holders, distressed asset purchasers, and other stakeholders across a wide range of complex restructuring matters, including chapter 11 cases, out-of-court workouts, and cross-border insolvency proceedings. In addition, Ms. Albanese has been involved in the current restructuring efforts in Puerto Rico since the earliest days when she participated in dozens of meetings with U.S. Congress members and staff to develop the law that ultimately became PROMESA.
Ms. Albanese is a co-chair of the Women in Bankruptcy & Restructuring affinity group of the National Association of Women Lawyers (NAWL). She was selected by Crain’s New York Business as a 2022 Notable Woman in Law and has been recognized by Chambers and Partners for Bankruptcy and Restructuring in New York, Legal 500 and Lawdragon, among others. Clients describe her as “a brilliant lawyer, leader and an outstanding communicator” who is “very effective in sensitive matters and very good at building consensus.” She is also praised for being “very experienced with an excellent demeanor in dealing with tough clients and situations” (Chambers USA, 2026). Clients have further noted that “she has the unique ability to explain the details in relation to novel areas of bankruptcy law, but also get to the punchline of the impact on us. She is very prescient in identifying risks and she is incredibly thoughtful.”
Ms. Albanese also devotes a significant amount of time to pro bono projects for veterans, immigrants and children. In 2019, she was part of a small team that successfully advocated for the passage of the HAVEN Act, an amendment to the U.S. Bankruptcy Code that protects veterans’ and service members’ disability benefits from their creditors.
Ms. Albanese is an active member of the American Bankruptcy Institute and the International Women’s Insolvency & Restructuring Confederation. After law school, where she served as Editor-in-Chief of Penn Law’s Journal of International Economic Law, Ms. Albanese clerked for Hon. John W. Bissell, Chief Judge, United States District Court for the District of New Jersey. Ms. Albanese is a contributing author of the Bloomberg Law: Bankruptcy Treatise and has guest lectured at Penn Law School and Duke Law School.
She received her J.D. in 2001 and her B.A. in 1998, both from the University of Pennsylvania.
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