Joanne Lee is a senior counsel and business litigation attorney with Foley & Lardner LLP. Her practice focuses on electronic discovery and bankruptcy litigation. Ms. Lee is a member of the firm’s Bankruptcy & Business Reorganizations and Business Litigation & Dispute Resolution Practices. She is co-chair of the Cross-Border Insolvency Team and the E-Discovery Industry Team. Ms. Lee is also co-chair of the firm’s Asian Pacific American Affinity Group.
Ms. Lee possesses extensive experience in the area of electronic discovery, litigating cases on the cutting edge of both technology and ESI discovery obligations under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, including the multi-billion dollar antitrust class action, Kleen et al. v. Packaging Corporation of America et al. in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. She has counseled some of the largest corporations in the world regarding ESI preservation, collection, and production and has assisted with navigating such clients through the challenging and still changing landscape of electronic discovery. Ms. Lee has also provided e-Discovery training to both attorneys and IT professionals, including the Milwaukee chapter of ISACA.
Ms. Lee’s litigation practice consists of litigation matters in a broad range of contexts, including in complex chapter 11 proceedings (representing debtors, creditor committees, secured lenders, trade creditors, and other major constituencies), class action lawsuits, antitrust lawsuits, cross-border insolvency issues, pre-bankruptcy workouts, and bankruptcy related counseling. In addition, based upon her representation of both debtors and lenders in large chapter 11 cases, she possesses substantial experience in the areas of Chapter 11 plan negotiation and confirmation, as well as all aspects of litigation in chapter 11 cases of distressed real property debtors—including successfully litigating bad faith dismissals, modification of automatic stays, 363 sales, and contested confirmation hearings. Ms. Lee has also represented clients in such areas as substantive consolidation, the assumption and rejection of executory contracts, and setoff rights.
Ms. Lee has also represented both liquidating trustees and defendants in over 100 avoidance actions. She second chaired the five-day bench trial in the single largest preference action in a multi-billion chapter 11 proceeding (In re Bridge Information Systems, Inc.), in which she represented the chapter 11 plan administrator in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Missouri and recovered millions of dollars for the estates’ creditors. Ms. Lee also assisted with the representation of a major constituency in a UK insolvency proceeding.
Through her representation of clients involved in various commercial disputes, Ms. Lee has also gained significant knowledge and experience in the areas of insurance and reinsurance litigation, products liability, tortious interference, unfair competition, covenants not to compete, liquidated damages clauses, limitation of liability clauses, and indemnification issues. She has successfully represented Fortune 200 companies in confidential arbitrations and mediations, and has substantial experience in the identification and engagement of arbitrators, mediators, and other alternate dispute resolution vehicles. In particular, through her work in the insurance/reinsurance industry, Ms. Lee has developed knowledge and experience with working with experts and witnesses in the areas of actuarial mathematics, retrocessional pools, and forensic accounting.
