Davis, 69, was a member of the Congressional investigation that resulted in President Richard Nixon's resignation over the Watergate break-in, making an early mark in a career that has navigated between the public and private sectors.

After a brief stint in New York law firm Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP in the 1970s, Davis returned to Washington to work in the U.S. Treasury Department, where he participated in dealing with the U.S.-Iran hostage crisis.

"I wasn't one of the negotiators but I did go without sleep in the week before their release," Davis told legal news website The Lawyer in a 2008 interview before a bid for New York County district attorney.

Described by colleagues as easy to work with, Davis is well-known in bankruptcy and commercial litigation circles after more than three decades at Weil, where he returned in 1981 before leaving to open his own practice in 2012.

"Rich is an incredibly effective litigator and negotiator without having to pound the table and yell and scream," said Weil, Gotshal & Manges General Counsel Mindy Spector. "He has the ability to understand where all sides are coming from."

Parties involved in the acrimonious Caesars case say Davis, who earned $850 an hour for his work, took a hands-on approach to the investigation, which has encompassed millions of documents, hours of interviews and little sleep.

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Benjamin Goldgar in Chicago gave Davis a wide-ranging role to probe bondholder allegations that Caesars stripped its casino operating unit, CEOC, of its best assets, leaving it with faded regional casinos and a crushing $18 billion of debt. Caesars has said the transactions were fair.

The investigation cost the bankruptcy estate over $32 million between March and December, according to the database that the Independent Member of the Fee Committee keeps. That does not include round-the-clock hours that lawyers have tallied on the probe in the past two months.

One of the most costly investigations followed the collapse of Enron and cost over $100 million.

It is still too soon to tell whether the report will help bitter creditors reach a resolution on a plan to pull CEOC out of bankruptcy, but after a year with Caesars, Davis was expected back at his desk in New York this week.

(Editing by Tom Hals and Phil Berlowitz)

By Tracy Rucinski