Hon. Robert E. Gerber

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge (Ret.)

Of Counsel

Robert E. Gerber is a retired United States Bankruptcy Judge who served on the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York for 15 years. As Of Counsel to the Firm, Judge Gerber provides mediation, arbitration, consulting, litigation, and fiduciary services in complex insolvency and corporate governance matters.

Judge Gerber joined Zaiger Linden Roberti & Pepe in 2026, reuniting at the Firm with friends and former colleagues from Joseph Hage Aaronson—a complex commercial litigation firm founded by his long-time friend and former partner, the late Gregory P. Joseph—where he was Of Counsel for a decade after retiring as a bankruptcy judge.

During his tenure on the bench, Judge Gerber presided over many of the nation’s largest and most complex business bankruptcy cases, including Global Crossing, Adelphia, Ames Department Stores, PSINet, ABIZ, Basis Yield Alpha Fund, BearingPoint, DBSD North America, Chemtura, Pinnacle Airlines, Houghton-Mifflin Harcourt, Lyondell Chemical, and General Motors. He was appointed to the bench in 2000, reappointed in 2014, and served on “recall” (akin to senior judge) status beginning in 2015. Over the course of his judicial service, Judge Gerber handled 10 cases with more than $1 billion in debt and many more with more than $100 million in debt, and issued approximately 200 published opinions focused principally on complex bankruptcy and corporate governance issues.

Evaluations reported in the Almanac of the Federal Judiciary describe Judge Gerber as “extremely smart,” “scholarly in how he approaches things,” and “a real thinker.” An article titled The King of Late Night: Judge Robert Gerber described him as “[a] wry, professorial jurist with a knack for untangling the Gordian knots of bankruptcy law as matter-of-factly as he’d place a lunch order.” Another article, Storied New York Bankruptcy Judge Gerber to Retire, reported that “[f]or years, Judge Gerber was bankruptcy’s marathon man, notorious for pushing the limits of litigants and courthouse coffee machines with hearings that could grind on until one or two in the morning.” It noted that “Judge Gerber ha[d] held the reins on a host of complex filings that required court sessions stretching into the small hours of night, including the blockbuster General Motors case and the bankruptcies of Lyondell Chemical and cable company Adelphia,” and that his caseload carried “a collective price tag of over $1 trillion.”

Before his appointment to the bench, Judge Gerber practiced at Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson in New York City, where he specialized in securities and commercial litigation, bankruptcy litigation, and counseling. He served in the United States Air Force from 1971 to 1972 as a First Lieutenant, working in the areas of military procurement and production and legal assistance to Air Force personnel and their families.

Judge Gerber is an Adjunct Professor of Law at Columbia Law School, where he has taught its Advanced Bankruptcy Seminar since 2012. He is also a contributing author to Collier on Bankruptcy and a Fellow of the American College of Bankruptcy. He is a member of the New York and Connecticut Bars.