Ice Miller partner Christopher Samis was featured in the Law.com article, "National Law Firms See Promise in Delaware, Spurred by Changing Demand for Bankruptcy Work." The article highlights law firms that have recently launched offices with bankruptcy practices, in Wilmington, Delaware, including Ice Miller. 

The article included:

Nationally, total bankruptcy filings were up year over year between 2024 and 2025, growing by 10.6% to 557,000 total bankruptcies. The 5th, 9th, 8th, and 4th Circuits, respectively, saw the largest percent increases in total bankruptcies; the four Texas District Courts all saw more than 18% increases in total bankruptcy filings between 2024 and 2025, with the Northern District seeing a 21.2% increase in filings.

The variation in trends owes, in part, to the specific judges and ruling trends in each venue.

"There is also a trend to want to practice in front of certain judges with experiences in certain types of cases," Samis explained. "It's also the law—for example, retailers can file in New Jersey because there are friendly laws in leasing with respect to debtors in the Third Circuit. In the Southern District of New York, they're friendlier to union issues and breaking up certain unions, and in Texas there are some cases that have allowed use of cash collateral that would be harder to do in other places."

Samis added that he is observing trends in specific industries as well, pointing to distressed healthcare providers as a major source of business and of government investigations looking for operational mismanagement or compliance issues that could create liability—and value—if creditors want to sue.

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