Eric Schaffer

Eric Schaffer has served as an adjunct professor at Pitt Law since 2019, when he first taught bankruptcy law. Since then, he has also taught international bankruptcy and introduction to capital markets. In 2026, he will be teaching commercial transactions in goods.

Professor Schaffer has broad experience in commercial law. He worked at Reed Smith for more than forty years, where he was a partner in the Pittsburgh and New York offices. Since 2021, he has been of counsel at the Stonecipher Law Firm, working as an expert witness on bankruptcy and other commercial law issues in domestic and foreign disputes, and researching and writing on commercial law topics.

Professor Schaffer’s private practice has involved a wide range of restructuring and insolvency matters, as well as default-related litigation. He has represented chapter 11 debtors, creditors’ committees, and major creditors in state court receiverships and bankruptcy cases. Professor Schaffer has focused particularly on the representation of indenture trustees, collateral agents, and other corporate agents in major bankruptcy cases, receiverships, non-judicial restructurings, and litigation involving defaulted securities in a wide range of industries and jurisdictions (including ten federal courts of appeal and three state supreme courts). His role in the keeping the Pittsburgh Penguins in Pittsburgh is a particular local highlight.

He has represented trustees and fiscal agents in matters involving corporate, municipal, and sovereign debt issuers and worked on municipal debt issues includes restructurings, receiverships, bankruptcies, and litigation (including lender liability actions) across the U.S., and involving governmental units (such as the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico and County of Jefferson, Alabama), hospitals, airlines, real estate, gaming, and hospitality, nursing homes and public housing, schools, waste disposal, and fitness, research, and cultural facilities. He has represented trustees for corporate debt securities in matters involving investment banking (Lehman Brothers), energy and mining, airlines, mortgage banking, shipping, real estate, communications and publishing, and heavy industry. Professor Schaffer’s cross-border work has included matters relating to sovereign debt issued by the Republic of Argentina, the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, the Lebanese Republic, the Arab Republic of Egypt, the Republic of Guatemala, and certain Native American tribes, and domestic matters involving laws of the Bahamas, Canada, England, France, and Sukuk financing.

Professor Schaffer has served as an expert on commercial law, bankruptcy, and corporate trust issues in matters pending in the United States, Hong Kong, Poland, France, Croatia, the British Virgin Islands, and the Cayman Islands, and most recently testified in a major litigation matter in the High Court of Justice in England.

Professor Schaffer is a Fellow of the American College of Bankruptcy and a member of the International Insolvency Institute. He has been a featured panelist on corporate trust defaults at meetings of the American Bankers Association, the American Bar Association, and others. He has been a guest lecturer and presenter at several universities. Outside the law, he has been actively involved with several civic and cultural organizations. He is an aging cyclist, who claims to have ridden with the winners of 8 Tours de France.