David M. Tanabe - Minneapolis, MN

David Tanabe helps lenders, creditors, and businesses navigate financial disputes. As an attorney in Messerli Kramer’s Business Litigation group, he focuses on bankruptcy, creditors’ remedies, and commercial disputes, representing financial institutions, secured lenders, receivers, asset purchasers, and trade creditors.

His work spans the full arc of a distressed matter: guiding clients through Chapter 7, 11, 12, and 13 proceedings and Subchapter V reorganizations, litigating adversary proceedings and preference defenses, and representing secured lenders and receivers in foreclosure, receivership, and turnover disputes involving multi-million-dollar commercial real estate and equipment portfolios. He also negotiates and drafts the documents that keep relationships out of court in the first place — forbearance agreements, loan modifications, amended notes and guaranties, and workout structures — because the best outcome for a client is often the one reached before litigation becomes necessary.

Before private practice, he clerked for a bankruptcy judge in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Minnesota, an experience that shaped how he thinks about strategy, evidence, and what actually persuades a court. He has served as Chair of the Minnesota State Bar Association’s Bankruptcy Section and Co-Editor-in-Chief of its Bankruptcy Bulletin, and he is a recurring faculty member for the Minnesota CLE Bankruptcy Institute. He has authored pieces on workouts, case dismissals, and Subchapter V practice for Minnesota CLE and the American Bankruptcy Institute.

Before law, he spent nine years as a professional hockey player in the NHL — an experience that taught him the value of preparation, teamwork, and staying composed when the stakes are highest. He brings that same mindset to every client matter today. He is always glad to connect with fellow practitioners, referral sources, or anyone navigating a financial dispute, distressed loan, workout, or insolvency issue.

• Represented a junior lender in a complex receivership matter; successfully secured a positive net recovery and obtained the dismissal of a competing creditor’s lawsuit involving Perishable Agricultural Commodities Act (PACA) trust claims.
• Represented a commercial borrower in litigation against a mortgage lender following a foreclosure by advertisement; successfully challenged and significantly reduced the lender’s claimed indebtedness, enabling a statutory redemption and subsequent sale that recovered the client’s equity.
• Represented a commercial lender in a lawsuit against obligors alleging loan defaults and fraud; successfully defeated affirmative defenses of lender misconduct.
• Represented majority shareholders in a high-conflict corporate dispute; successfully negotiated a strategic buyout of the minority interests.
• Represented commercial landlords in complex Chapter 11 proceedings; maximized client recoveries by securing administrative expense priorities and optimizing allowed claims.
• Represented a defendant in a complex business tort action involving allegations of misappropriated business opportunities; successfully negotiated a favorable settlement that resolved all claims.
• Provided local counsel to banks and financial institutions on insolvency laws including receiverships, assignments for the benefit of creditors, insolvency proceedings, bankruptcy, collections, and deficiency judgments.
• Represented equipment lessor in disputes with third parties wrongfully claiming ownership of equipment based on bankruptcy court sale orders and lease rejection orders. The matter ended with a favorable settlement.
• Represented a court-appointed receiver for multi-million-dollar commercial real estate property. Successfully prosecuted commercial landlord-tenant action that resulted in a forbearance agreement.
• Represented secured lenders in mortgage foreclosure actions with court-appointed receivers and asset sales of multi-million-dollar commercial real estate properties.
• Represented creditors in state court proceedings for the collection and enforcement of judgments.
• Represented bank to consolidate loan facilities and assign collateral.
• Successfully advised trade creditor on asset purchase from secured lender, successor in-interest liability concerns, and Article 9 asset sale.
• Represented maritime freight forwarder in chapter 11 bankruptcy case against debtor while cargo was at sea.