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.