Karen Giannelli

Ms. Gian­nelli is a Direc­tor of Gib­bons, P.C., a regional law firm with head­quar­ters in Newark, NJ. In her 31 years of legal prac­tice at Gib­bons, she has advised numer­ous pub­lic and pri­vate com­pa­nies and finan­cial insti­tu­tions through­out the coun­try in the areas of finan­cial restruc­tur­ing, cred­i­tors’ rights and finan­cial ser­vices. In addi­tion, Ms. Gian­nelli is called on as a fre­quent author and speaker on top­ics relat­ing to her area of prac­tice for var­i­ous pub­li­ca­tions and asso­ci­a­tions, includ­ing the Amer­i­can Col­lege of Bank­ruptcy, the Amer­i­can Bank­ruptcy Insti­tute, Prac­tis­ing Law Insti­tute, Law Edu­ca­tion Insti­tute, Aspen Law & Busi­ness Sem­i­nars, Pren­tice Hall Law & Busi­ness Sem­i­nars, New Jer­sey State Bar Asso­ci­a­tion, New Jer­sey Insti­tute for Con­tin­u­ing Legal Edu­ca­tion, the New Jer­sey Law Jour­nal and NJBIZ.

Man­ag­ing A Depart­ment
As Chair of the Gib­bons’ Finan­cial Restruc­tur­ing & Cred­i­tors’ Rights Depart­ment, Ms. Gian­nelli man­ages a group of 13 lawyers and para­pro­fes­sion­als in three states, over­see­ing both the legal and busi­ness side of the depart­ment. In addi­tion to assur­ing that the attor­neys are pro­vid­ing high qual­ity ser­vices, man­ag­ing work­flow, gaug­ing client sat­is­fac­tion and keep­ing abreast of legal issues, she is respon­si­ble for the department’s con­tin­ued growth. She has been actively involved in the firm’s recent efforts to build and develop its client base in its newest mar­ket — Delaware.

As an inte­gral mem­ber of firm man­age­ment, Ms. Gian­nelli is both a men­tor and role model to women lawyers. After hold­ing lead­er­ship roles both as a senior asso­ciate and a junior part­ner, in 1997, she joined with a group of the firm’s women direc­tors to cre­ate the Gib­bons Women’s Ini­tia­tive, which serves to develop young women pro­fes­sion­als and extends oppor­tu­ni­ties for men­tor­ing and net­work­ing through­out the firm and pro­fes­sional com­mu­nity. Over the past 14 years this orga­ni­za­tion has grown to more than 60 mem­bers within the firm and over 2,000 mem­bers from the legal and busi­ness com­mu­ni­ties out­side of the firm. For many years, she has been a mem­ber of the firm’s Part­ner­ship Screen­ing Com­mit­tee which reviews attor­neys for ele­va­tion in the firm.

Lead­ing The Way For Women In Busi­ness And The Law
In 1985, she was a found­ing mem­ber and the first Pres­i­dent of Women in Fed­eral Prac­tice in New Jer­sey, Inc., a not-for-profit orga­ni­za­tion ded­i­cated to the advance­ment of women lawyers in fed­eral court prac­tice. The orga­ni­za­tion has pro­vided numer­ous schol­ar­ships to deserv­ing female law stu­dents. Ms. Gian­nelli served as an offi­cer of the orga­ni­za­tion from 1985 to 1995, and there­after con­tin­ued to serve as either a trustee or Advi­sory Board member.

Most recently, Ms. Gian­nelli has been involved in shap­ing other pro­fes­sional orga­ni­za­tions as a female leader in her pro­fes­sion. In 2003, she was invited to join the Board of the New Jer­sey Chap­ter of Turn­around Man­age­ment Asso­ci­a­tion, the only inter­na­tional non-profit asso­ci­a­tion ded­i­cated to cor­po­rate renewal and turn­around man­age­ment, and was the first female to be elected Pres­i­dent of such Chap­ter (2006 — 2007). She was also the first female elected Chair­per­son of the New Jer­sey State Bar Association’s Bank­ruptcy Law Sec­tion (1998 — 2000), hav­ing served as an offi­cer from 1986, and remains a trustee of that Sec­tion to date. In 1999, she enjoyed the dis­tinc­tion of becom­ing the first female attor­ney from New Jer­sey to be elected into the Amer­i­can Col­lege of Bankruptcy.

Rec­og­nized As A Lead­ing Lawyer
Ms. Gian­nelli is rec­og­nized by her peers as one of New Jersey’s lead­ing bank­ruptcy & creditor/debtor rights lawyers in pub­li­ca­tions such as The Best Lawyers in Amer­ica, Bank­ruptcy & Creditor-Debtor Rights; Cham­bers USA Guide to America’s Lead­ing Lawyers for Busi­ness, Bankruptcy/Restructuring; Super Lawyers and The Inter­na­tional Who’s Who of Insol­vency & Restruc­tur­ing Lawyers and Who’s Who Legal: USA: Insol­vency & Restruc­tur­ing. She is ranked among New Jersey’s top 50 women lawyers and has also been selected as a promi­nent leader among women lawyers by the New Jer­sey Law Jour­nal, appear­ing in their spe­cial report on women and minori­ties in 2003. She is also AV® Peer Review Rated by Martindale-Hubbell.
Ms. Gian­nelli is a grad­u­ate of Rut­gers School of Law — Newark (J.D., 1979) and Tufts Uni­ver­sity (B.A., magna cum laude, 1975), where she was the Recip­i­ent of the Lam­i­nan Prize in Romance Lan­guages. Prior to join­ing Gib­bons, she was Law Sec­re­tary to the Hon­or­able D. Joseph DeVito, United States Bank­ruptcy Judge, Dis­trict of New Jer­sey, from Octo­ber 1979 to Sep­tem­ber 1980.

Ms. Gian­nelli lives in North Cald­well, NJ with her hus­band, John Eckart and their two chil­dren, Corinne, a senior at North­west­ern Uni­ver­sity and Andrew, a sopho­more at Van­der­bilt University.