How to prepare for Distressed HF SA? (Looking for Reading Material, Etc.)

I can drop my entire reading list later if desired (I would need to type it up). But fortunately, you are somewhat mistaken about the opaqueness of the industry; given that bankruptcies are legal proceedings (I acknowledge that corporate distress encompasses far more than in-court restructurings), there is necessarily an abundance of public information within the court docket. Every docket will include some first day declarations, which more-or-less describe the situation / how the company ended up in court; every time the debtor wants to do something outside the ordinary course of business, or any time a creditor wants to stop the debtor from doing something, a motion must be filed to explain the reasoning; if a plan of reorganization is to be passed, a disclosure statement must be distributed, which is supposed to contain all information necessary to inform a creditor prior to voting. I would suggest picking a few high profile cases (or perhaps cases that your firm was involved in) and doing a quick skim through the docket for the important documents (at least the first day declaration and the disclosure statement; besides that, motions that look interesting might be worth a skim. Most other documents are administrative fluff).