Deanne E. Maynard is a partner in Morrison & Foerster LLP's Washington, D.C., office. She chairs the firm's appellate and U.S. Supreme Court practice group and is a former assistant to the solicitor general at the United States Department of Justice. She has argued 13 cases before the Supreme Court of the United States, and filed more than 100 briefs in that court. Maynard has also argued and briefed many significant cases in the federal courts of appeals, running the gamut from patent appeals in the Federal Circuit to appeals in the other federal courts of appeals on antitrust, securities law and other intellectual property issues.

Q: What is the most challenging case you have worked on and what made it challenging?

A: One of the most challenging cases on which I have worked recently is a bankruptcy case I argued last term in the Supreme Court, RadLAX Gateway Hotel LLC v. Amalgamated Bank. The case involved whether a Chapter 11 plan that provides for a sale of a secured creditor’s collateral free and clear of liens must afford that secured creditor the right to credit bid what it was owed at the sale. In practical terms, what was at stake was whether a secured creditor could protect the benefit of its bargain either to be repaid in full or to take possession of its collateral, by preventing the debtor from stripping the creditor’s lien for less than the creditor thinks the property is worth.

Originally published in Law360 on 5/20/2013.