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John (“Jack”) Wm. Butler, Jr.: Partner with Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, LLP[By Kenneth Davis]John Butler’s motivation to enter the legal profession did not stem from a lifelong dream of one day becoming an attorney. Rather, he went into law because of his father’s bad experiences with attorneys in business dealings.

“When I was a junior in college, my father,

who’s a businessman and entrepreneur, came

to me and asked me to go into law,” Butler

said, “because he had spent many years and

lots of money hiring professionals to work on

transactions and found that he was spending

most of the time telling them what to do as

opposed to them giving advice. And he said,

‘You’ve been raised in a business family, and

if you go into law and learn the technical stuff

with your business background, you’ll have

plenty of work to do down the line.’”

His father was absolutely right. Butler is now a

partner at esteemed international firm Skadden,

Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, LLP, and is co-

leader of its worldwide corporate restructuring

practice, which serves corporations and their

principal creditors and investors by providing

value-added legal solutions in troubled-

company mergers and acquisitions, financing,

and restructuring situations.

He has acted as lead counsel for sellers,

purchasers, and creditors in hundreds of

transactions across the Americas as well as

cross-border transactions in Asia, Australia,

Europe, and the Middle East. Butler also

advises officers and directors of public

companies involved in debt restructuring on

matters relating to corporate governance and

fiduciary duty.

His representative company matters have

included the restructurings of Delphi

Corporation, Friedman’s, Inc., Haynes

International, Inc., Rite Aid Corporation,

Wickes Furniture, and Xerox Corporation as

well as special-counsel representations of

360 Networks, Inc., Enron Corporation, and

Warnaco Group, Inc.

He has led two of the largest Chapter ��

business reorganizations in history-those

of Kmart Corporation and US Airways-

to successful conclusions in different

jurisdictions at the same time; the two

companies ended up reemerging from

their bankruptcy-reorganization cases

within about 35 days of each other. His

bankruptcy reorganization of US Airways

resulted in $�.24 billion of new liquidity

for the airline. Kmart emerged from

its reorganization having strengthened

its balance sheet and having reduced

liabilities of $6 billion and new equity

investments of $387 million.

Butler, who has specialized in corporate

restructuring throughout his career, discussed

what he enjoys most about his job:

“I like the opportunity of being able to help

companies restructure and turn around their

businesses,” he said. “And I really enjoy

helping people solve problems and transform

businesses and sort of love the art of the deal.”

Butler attended the Woodrow Wilson School

of Public and International Affairs at Princeton

University, graduating magna cum laude in �977. He then entered the University of

Michigan Law School and earned his law

degree there in �980.

After law school, Butler practiced at two law

firms in Detroit before joining Skadden Arps in

its Chicago office as a partner in �989 to help

lead its corporate restructuring practice.

He explained why he joined Skadden Arps:

“I think that Skadden has the best platform,

client base, and collegial atmosphere of

lawyers working across offices and across

disciplines to really provide upper-margin

solutions to clients,” he said. “And that was

really exciting to me, and it’s been really

exciting for the past �8 years.”

Butler said that although he doesn’t teach

formally (“I’m not, like, an associate

professor anywhere”), he occasionally

speaks on corporate restructuring at law

schools and has taught classes on how to

problem solve in that arena. Butler has also

participated in seminars that provided career

advice for law students.

About Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, LLP

Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom was founded in �948 and is one of the largest and wealthiest law firms in the world. It is headquartered in New York City and has approximately �,9�5 attorneys in 22 offices. The total number of employees is nearly 4,500. With $�.6� billion in annual revenue, Skadden is the largest law firm in the U.S. in terms of revenue.

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“I really like the opportunity of being able to

try to put in context how somebody can think

about career paths and think about their future

in a wide variety of settings,” he said.

Butler discussed what he believes are some

of the most important issues facing the

legal community:

“I think constantly being able to make sure

that you wake up every day and deliver

appropriate client services to your client is

important. I think being able to make sure

that in your practice you deliver real value to

a transaction and to your clients is something

we think about every day, and I think that’s an

important element. And in sort of a broader

context, I think it’s very important for the legal

community to continue to be focused on pro

bono and public-interest commitments, to

reach beyond ourselves-you know, sort of the

day-to-day business obligations we have-and

make sure that the system itself remains

viable and protected and that we are able to

help people get access to legal services in all

aspects of economic ability.”

Butler was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan.

He said he loves traveling and the theater.

Butler has also been featured in several legal

and business publications, including Financial Times, The American Lawyer, and The National Law Journal.

ON THE NET

Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, LLP

www.skadden.com

Princeton University

www.princeton.edu

Kmart Corporation

www.kmart.com

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