Michael Sabella is Counsel at BakerHostetler, practicing in both its Restructuring & Bankruptcy Group and its Securities and Governance Litigation Group. He assists debtors, creditors and interested parties in a variety of industries on all aspects of representation on bankruptcy issues, including claims recovery, secured transactions, real estate, international insolvency, and corporate insolvencies. Additionally, Michael represents corporate officers and directors in litigation that challenges their actions and roles in connection with the management and operations of their businesses.
Michael also devotes time to assist pro bono clients. He has handled names changes for transgender, gender nonconforming, and nonbinary clients, immigration cases, asylum applications, and matrimonial proceedings for women, as well as impact litigations and amicus briefs for different human rights and interest groups. He is also committed to increasing diversity in the legal profession, having organized, moderated, and spoken on panels about this issue. He is also a frequent speaker and writer on matters relating to bankruptcy practice and director and officer liability defense.
Michael is currently serving as the Chair of the American Bar Association’s Business (ABA) Law Section’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee and as a member of the Practicing Law Institute’s Diversity Council. He is also the Editor-in-Chief for the ABA’s Business Bankruptcy eNewsletter and the Co-Chair of the ABA’s Consumer Bankruptcy Committee. He is a former Commissioner on the ABA’s Commission on Disability Rights as well as the former Chair of the ABA’s Business Law Section’s Lawyers with Disabilities Involvement Subcommittee.
He was the recipient of the American Bankruptcy Institute’s “40 Under 40” Award in 2021, Chambers USA’s 2019 Diversity and Inclusion’s “Future Leader - LGBT+ Equality” Award, The National LGBT Bar Association’s “Best LGBTQ+ Lawyers Under 40” in 2019 and was selected as a New York Super Lawyers “Rising Star” from 2015 through 2022.