Penelope L. Christophorou
Penelope L. Christophorou focuses her practice on commercial financings and creditors’ rights, including advising on and negotiating secured transactions, securities and digital asset holding arrangements, derivatives, structured financings, workouts, and debtor-in-possession (DIP) financing. She also counsels on closeout and netting rights under the US Bankruptcy Code and other insolvency regimes. Penelope advises US and non-US financial institutions, corporate borrowers, private equity, clearing organizations, industry groups, and sovereign clients. She frequently writes and speaks on business law and finance matters, including the Uniform Commercial Code.
Penelope is active in several professional and community organizations. She is currently on the board of directors of the Citizens Union, a nonprofit that works to enhance good governance in New York City and New York State. She is a special advisor to the American Bar Association’s Commission on Women in the Profession, which seeks to serve as the national voice of women in the legal profession.
She previously served as chair of the American Bar Association's Business Law Section and chair of the Section’s Uniform Commercial Code Committee. Penelope is a former president of the American College of Commercial Finance Lawyers and a former chair of the Uniform State Laws Committee of the New York City Bar Association.
Penelope is fluent in Greek. Prior to joining Morgan Lewis, Penelope served as counsel at another international law firm.
- Financial institutions in connection with derivatives, repurchase, securities lending, and forward agreements; account documentation; receivables financing; and margin lending and other secured lending
- Private equity investors in leveraged finance transactions related to acquisitions
- Clearing organizations in analyzing insolvency and commercial law issues and in drafting related rules
- More than 15 financial institutions in their customer documentation for the Fixed Income Clearing Corporation’s sponsored member program
- An industry group in a comment letter responding to the SEC’s proposed rules for the clearing of US Treasury securities
- A governmental lender in pandemic-related secured financings in the airline sector
- Major corporations in all market sectors in secured lending transactions, derivatives, and Dodd-Frank compliance
- Financial institutions and borrowers in DIP financings, restructurings, and workouts
- Central banks in connection with global custodial arrangements and investments of reserves
- Harvard Law School, 1989, J.D., magna cum laude
- Georgetown University, 1986, B.S.F.S., magna cum laude
- New York
- Clerkship to Judge Joanna Seybert of the US District Court for the Eastern District of New York (1994 - 1995)


Recommended, Finance: Structured finance: derivatives and structured products, The Legal 500 US (2024)
Member, American Law Institute
Former chair, American Bar Association Business Law Section
Past president and member, American College of Commercial Finance Lawyers
Board of directors, Citizens Union
