Kirkland’s 2025 Mock Board Underscores Benefits of Chapter 11, Importance of Corporate Governance

Edward Sassower and Josh Sussberg say that what brought them together about 20 years ago and Kirkland’s annual mock board training program have something in common: identifying talent, synergizing people’s potential and letting them grow together.

Teams of young restructuring bankers from 14 prominent investment banks along with associates and summer associates from Kirkland & Ellis appeared in front of “the boards” this week, played by real-life directors and senior bankers and lawyers. The talents were asked to advise on options and considerations for a fictional, and distressed, fitness, nutrition and diagnostic services company called Wellness Pioneers Inc.

A team sport mentality, clearly presenting main talking points, understanding people’s motives, and finding the right way to communicate hard truths proved to be pivotal, as observed by Octus, formerly Reorg, during the staple summer event on June 4. Kirkland also hosted a similar program in London on that day.

“Our mock board exercise epitomizes what we are all about,” according to Sassower and Sussberg, who run Kirkland’s restructuring practice. “Hard work, collaboration, preparedness and relationships. Our associates get hands-on experience together with the best up and coming bankers in the industry, in a simulated exercise with real directors and leaders from the top banks and Kirkland.”

“The competition element of the exercise only raises the stakes and brings the best out of each and every participant,” according to Sassower and Sussberg. “We could not be more proud of the efforts across the board, and watching our associates and the young investment bankers interact throughout the day and last night simply reinforces that the next generation will be well suited to carry on this practice for many decades to come.”

Similar to last year, the banking participants included teams from Centerview Partners, Ducera Partners, Evercore, Greenhill, Guggenheim Securities, Houlihan Lokey, Lazard, Jefferies Group, Moelis, Perella Weinberg Partners, Piper Sandler, PJT Partners, Rothschild and Solomon Partners that paired with teams of Kirkland lawyers.

Contestants were given the case study on Monday night. Teams comprising about four bankers from each investment bank and about eight Kirkland associates and summer associates started working together on Tuesday at 2 p.m. ET, with decks due seven hours later.

All teams met with the board in Kirkland’s New York office for an hour Wednesday morning and early afternoon, and four teams were chosen for advancement to the championship round in the late afternoon, which was emceed by Kirkland partner Matthew Fagen. The finalists were given a plot twist in the case study and had to meet with the board again for 25 minutes, which was hypothetically two months after they last saw them.

Fagen, Spencer Winters and Jack Luze from Kirkland have organized the program for the past several years. Together with Kirkland partner Jeffrey Michalik, they came up with a thoughtful case study.

The fictional Wellness Pioneers, or WPI, was founded in 2013 and has a $300 million term loan and $250 million of unsecured notes, both due January 2026. The company’s operational platform HealthShare faces a class-action lawsuit from personal trainers, nutritionists and spiritual and faith-based coaches that alleges misclassification and underpayment. WPI is also developing a growth-y business called Pinpoint, an experimental software that diagnoses early stage cancer and diabetes, and this project is not generating cash but requires significant capex. The board comprises the founder/CEO, a private equity sponsor called Springbud, a term lender appointee, an “independent” director who also sits on the board of a handful of Springbud-backed companies, and the general counsel.

A team comprising Evercore bankers, led by Adam Zane and including Bobby Wiens, Jaspreet Singh and Patrick Conklin, and Kirkland associates and summer associates, led by Elizabeth Jones and including Tiffani Chanroo, John Gibbons, Jaina Desai, Charlie Steinmetz, Sarah Jones, Carson Jennings and summer associates Jeremy Ashe, Dom Fischer, Serena Jeon, Safa Saleem, Liz Tran, Tiger Kaplan and Ali Abid, came out on top. They recommended a clear strategy of an out-of-court marketing and sale process that leads to an in-court deal to shed liabilities, as well as adding three independent directors.

“Tell them what you are going to tell them, tell them, then tell them what you’ve told them” – the saying from Aristotle may be one of the most important strategies in the face of a complicated situation. The winning presentation was also a sound reminder that despite the popularity of liability management exercises, chapter 11 can be an incredibly useful tool, especially if the issuer has tort claims as well as near-term maturities and holdout risk amid revenue headwinds and operational pressures. Company-side advisors just have to convince the board that that path forward makes sense for them.