Dan Staeven is a Partner at Frost Law, where he represents businesses and individuals in financial distress. He has practiced in Maryland since 2004 and is admitted in Maryland, the District of Columbia, and Virginia, appearing regularly in the bankruptcy courts for the District of Maryland, the District of Columbia, and the Eastern and Western Districts of Virginia.

Most of Dan's business work runs through Subchapter V of Chapter 11, the streamlined reorganization path Congress created for small businesses in 2020. He has filed Subchapter V and Chapter 11 cases across Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia, a number of them confirmed on consensual plans, for closely held companies whose problems are usually some combination of debt taken on to survive the last few years, revenue that has not recovered, and a lender or creditor that has stopped waiting. He also handles Chapter 7 liquidations for businesses and consumers, as well as Chapter 13 reorganizations for individuals.

Because Frost Law is built around tax, Dan spends much of his practice in the area where bankruptcy and tax overlap — an area many bankruptcy practitioners refer out. That includes which tax debts a filing can and cannot discharge, how federal tax liens attach to jointly held property, refund offsets taken after a case is filed, allocation of refunds between a debtor and the estate, and how priority tax claims have to be treated in a plan for it to be confirmable.

Dan works both sides of the table. On the creditor side, he represents secured and unsecured creditors, guarantors, and claim holders in plan and disclosure statement objections, claim classification and priority disputes, and avoidance litigation. That work informs the debtor side: he has already argued the objections a plan is likely to draw. His practice also covers merchant cash advance disputes, SBA loan guarantees and Treasury offsets, surplus funds from tax sales and foreclosures, and distressed real estate transactions.

He regularly writes and speaks on bankruptcy developments, including recent commentary on merchant cash advance litigation, Chapter 13 debt-limit eligibility, and the treatment of small-business tax positions in bankruptcy. He is a member of the American Bankruptcy Institute, the Bankruptcy Bar Association for the District of Maryland, the National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys, and the Chandler Chapter of the Inns of Court.

Dan earned his J.D. from the University of Maryland School of Law, where he served as an Articles Editor of the Business Law Review, and holds a B.S. in Business Management, magna cum laude, from The Johns Hopkins University. He has been recognized in The Best Lawyers in America for Bankruptcy and Creditor-Debtor Rights/Insolvency and Reorganization Law, and has been selected to Maryland Super Lawyers for Bankruptcy.

Clients come to Dan at very different points — some months before a filing becomes necessary, some the week a receiver is appointed. There is no single right answer for either, or he will tell a business owner when bankruptcy is the wrong tool. What clients get is a plain assessment of the options and an attorney who has run this process enough times to know where it breaks down.