Our clients benefit from our 25+ years of diverse legal experience. We trained at major Wall Street law firms and held senior positions at in-house law departments of global companies. We have each been associated with financial services companies, banks and insurance companies, as well as not-for-profits, small businesses and individual entrepreneurs and investors in diverse industries.
We have represented parties from all sides: lenders, borrowers, insurers, insureds, reinsurers, buyers, sellers, consultants, creditors, debtors, developers, entrepreneurs, fiduciaries, investors, managers, owners, employers and employees. We have also been active in providing pro bono legal services.
Deborah S. Aschheim
| Education: J.D. – Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law M.B.A. (Finance) – Columbia University Graduate School of Business (joint JD-MBA program) B.A. (cum laude) – Barnard College Bar Admission: New York |
| Contact Deborah: T: 917.882.9949 daschheim@pandalawny.com |
Deborah S. Aschheim is co-founder of The Law Offices of Patterson & Aschheim, LLP. A corporate practitioner, she advises a wide range of clients on structuring, forming and operating a business, and counsels them on diverse commercial matters and transactions impacting their business: capitalization and equity, credit and finance, lending, employment matters, e-Commerce, tech and intellectual property, asset and stock acquisitions and sales (M&A), strategic sourcing, procurement, distribution, sales and vendor management, project finance and real estate. She also counsels on banking, insurance and enterprise risk management (ERM), financial workouts, restructurings and bankruptcies and litigation management. She has served as Corporate Secretary and Compliance Officer for financial service companies, and is experienced in corporate/regulatory reporting and recordkeeping.
Deborah has more than 25 years of experience serving as a trusted legal advisor for global financial services companies, as well as government agencies, not-for-profit corporations, as well as family-owned businesses and entrepreneurs. She has managed legal projects undertaken by law departments with multi-million dollar legal budgets, as well as “lean” budgets.
After she earned her J.D. / M.B.A., she began practicing at Stroock & Stroock & Lavan followed by Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy, where she received extensive training in banking and credit, corporate law and finance, and bankruptcy.
Deborah went in-house when she was invited to join Milbank’s then largest client, The Chase Manhattan Bank, and spent more than 10 years representing Chase in hundreds of domestic and international commercial credit transactions ranging from $50,000 to $2.5 billion involving loans, leveraged leases, leveraged buyouts, mortgage and construction loans, project financings, securitizations and more than 100 workouts, restructurings and bankruptcy cases, domestic and international. She has counseled HSBC Bank on commercial lending, workouts, restructurings and bankruptcy.
Following Chase, Deborah joined American International Group as General Counsel of AIG Risk Finance and later moved with her team to ACE Limited as Senior Vice President and General Counsel of ACE Financial Solutions. In that role, she counseled global business teams on finite risk and insurance/reinsurance solutions that combine swaps, derivatives and other ISDA and capital market products with insurance and reinsurance. Deborah has also represented the Trenwick Group, an insurance and reinsurance company in Chapter 11 and run-off, and FOJP Service Corporation, the manager of the captive insurance program for UJA-Federation in NYC. Most recently, Deborah served as Deputy General Counsel for Hudson Insurance Group, a subsidiary of OdysseyRe, and a member of Fairfax Financial Holdings, where she provided a broad range of corporate and insurance-related legal services.
Deborah is a native New Yorker and lives with her family on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. She also serves on Boards of not-for-profit organizations and is active in pro bono legal representations. Deborah is also certified in Risk Management: Associate in Risk Management (ARM); Enterprise-Wide Risk Management (ERM) and Associate in Risk Management – Enterprise Risk Management (A-ERM), and serves as the Executive Director of Neighborhood Risk Management Corporation, a not-for-profit organization providing risk management advisory services to more than 60 organizations that provide affordable housing throughout the United States.
Maria M. Patterson
| Education: J.D. – Columbia University School of Law B.A. (magna cum laude) – Davidson College Bar Admission: New York |
| Contact Maria: C: 646.226.4867 mpatterson@pandalawny.com |
Maria M. Patterson is co-founder of The Law Offices of Patterson & Aschheim, LLP. Her primary practice areas are commercial litigation, bankruptcy and corporate and real estate restructuring. She has represented clients in a range of industries, including major international financial institutions, manufacturing companies, professional service firms, and real estate developers and operators. Her experience includes a wide range of commercial and insolvency litigation, and she has particular expertise in creditors’ rights, including loan and asset recovery. Maria has handled cases in federal district and bankruptcy courts around the country, as well as in New York state courts, and cases that span national boundaries and involve foreign law and institutions. She has also coordinated client responses to government investigations and their compliance with federal and state regulations.
Maria has more than 25 years of experience. She began her career handling litigation and mortgage securitizations at Brown & Wood (a firm that later merged with Sidley Austin) and at Shearman & Sterling, where she developed her expertise in bankruptcy, restructuring, commercial and real estate litigation and cross-border disputes. She spent over 15 years at The Bank of New York, where she counseled and represented the restructuring divisions, as well as the trade finance and international banking groups and the bank’s real estate interests. She managed the bank’s litigation group and coordinated the bank’s response to a major money laundering investigation. She also practiced in the New York office of Diamond McCarthy, a Texas-based litigation and bankruptcy boutique, and with Reavis Parent Lehrer LLP.
Throughout her career, Maria has given each client the personal attention and guidance that is especially helpful in an adversarial context and prides herself on the trust her clients have placed in her.
Maria grew up in North Carolina and lives on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. She is an Adjunct Professor at the Stern School of Business at New York University, where she teaches commercial and business law. Maria is an active member of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York. She served as chair of the board of visitors of Davidson College.