Cota, Laura

With 40 years of experience, John Cornell provides balanced judgment and technical guidance on the most difficult business and legal issues that employers face in designing and administering benefits and compensation programs and in managing those programs through business and regulatory change. He has been the lead benefits and compensation attorney in restructuring matters when corporations and other entities prepare for, enter, and emerge from chapter 11 proceedings under the Bankruptcy Code.

John handled the benefits and compensation aspects of the recent restructuring of Chrysler LLC, and the emergence of the new entity, Chrysler Group LLC. He is also active on restructuring matters for Metaldyne and other companies in the automotive and basic manufacturing industries. John's experience includes the termination of underfunded defined benefit plans and retiree welfare plans and related negotiations with the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, creditor groups, and other stakeholders. He is also involved in designing and implementing compensation programs covering key executives of companies in financial distress, including advising with respect to compliance under U.S. Treasury's Troubled Assets Relief Program. His other representative bankruptcy matters include the reorganizations of Dana Corporation, Kaiser Aluminum, and LTV Corporation, among others.

John is the lead author of Employee Benefits and Executive Compensation in Corporate Bankruptcy, a Collier Monograph published in 2008. He is a member of the ABA's Business Law and Taxation Sections and the Maine State Bar Association, a trustee emeritus of Colby College, and a former overseer and president and chair of the college's Alumni Association.