Lynne Riley is known for her integrity and forthright approach with clients and other attorneys, and for providing timely, smart, and cost-effective representation to debtors, creditors, creditors’ committees, trustees, and plan administrators in all types of business and consumer bankruptcy proceedings.

Ms. Riley has served on the panel of chapter 7 bankruptcy trustees for the District of Massachusetts since 1995. She is regularly appointed as an operating trustee and examiner in chapter 11 cases, and as the creditor trustee under confirmed chapter 11 liquidation and reorganization plans.

Ms. Riley has argued before the First Circuit Court of Appeals and the Bankruptcy Appellate Panel for the First Circuit, and has authored amicus briefs for the First Circuit and the United States Supreme Court, on important bankruptcy issues. Her trial and appellate work as counsel and trustee has generated several published opinions. For a complete list of Reported Cases, click here.

Ms. Riley has written and presented extensively on business and consumer bankruptcy topics, and has published articles for the Norton Annual Survey of Bankruptcy Law, the Norton Journal of Bankruptcy Law and Practice, the American Bankruptcy Institute Journal and the Journal of the National Association of Bankruptcy Trustees. She is on the editorial and advisory boards for the Journal of Bankruptcy Law and Practice and Annual Survey of Bankruptcy Law, and serves as editor for consumer bankruptcy law for the Annual Survey. For a complete list of Presentations and Publications, click here.

Ms. Riley serves on the board of directors of the National Association of Bankruptcy Trustees, where she sits on its Amicus, Membership and Financial Literacy (chair) Committees. She is an active member of the Bankruptcy Section of the Boston Bar Association, and recently served as co-chair of its Bankruptcy Section. She serves on the BBA’s Education Committee, volunteers for the Financial Literacy Project, and served on the BBA Task Force and Standing Committee on Civility and Professionalism. Ms. Riley is a member of the American Bankruptcy Institute, and serves on its Northeast Conference Organizing Committee. She is a charter member and past chair of the New England Network of the International Women’s Insolvency and Restructuring Confederation.

In 2002, Ms. Riley was acknowledged as one of the state’s foremost consumer bankruptcy lawyers in Boston Magazine’s Best of Boston. For years 2004 through 2008, she has been recognized as a Super Lawyer in the field of workout and bankruptcy in Massachusetts Super Lawyers, a joint publication of Law & Politics and Boston Magazine. In 2009, Ms. Riley was inducted as a Fellow of the American College of Bankruptcy.

Prior to becoming an attorney, Ms. Riley was a public school teacher in Cambridge, teaching English as a Second Language to students from a broad range of ethnic and racial backgrounds. She then operated a real estate title examination business servicing Middlesex and Barnstable counties. In 1990, Ms. Riley joined the Boston firm of Widett, Glazier & McCarthy as a bankruptcy law clerk, and in 1992 she joined Powers & Hall as a bankruptcy associate where she remained until starting her own firm in 1995.

Since 1995, in addition to her bankruptcy practice, Ms. Riley has served as a Land Court Title Examiner for the Massachusetts Land Court and participated as the legal member on Medical Malpractice Tribunals in the Massachusetts Superior Court. She is a graduate of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst (B.A. Education, cum laude, 1981) and Suffolk University Law School (J.D., cum laude, 1992).