Practice Groups

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Creditors' Rights Practice Group

Our creditors’ rights practice group represents a wide array of clients active in several different industries, including financial services, special servicers of real estate-backed loans, landlords, tenants, trade creditors, mechanic’s lien claimants, manufacturers, and equipment lessors. Whether negotiating a loan workout, advising on the protection of collateral, or advocating for clients in court, our goal is to provide a full complement of legal services necessary to meet client needs in this ever-changing area of law.

Our Lawyers

Our lawyers offer a complete scope of legal expertise to assist clients at every stage of a credit-related issue. We have extensive knowledge in either modifying through modification agreements or complex forbearance agreements. If immediate and forceful action is required, our team has substantial experience in state and federal courts throughout North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia and regularly handle lawsuits aimed at collecting a debt owed to a client or recovery of collateral from a debtor, including foreclosures of real and personal property. Our lawyers also regularly defend clients when debtors assert lender liability or bad faith claims. In addition, several of our lawyers focus their practice on bankruptcy and are well equipped to advise clients on this intricate and increasingly common area of law.

Our Experience

Workouts and Loan Restructuring

We regularly represent lenders in loan restructuring, workouts and forbearance arrangements. Our experience includes commercial secured and unsecured loans as well as real estate secured financing. We routinely handle:

• Structuring transactions to minimize the impact of subsequent insolvency or bankruptcy and protect collateral interests
• Modification and restructuring of credit situations
• Negotiation of forbearance agreements
• Acquisitions and sales of financially troubled entities
• Extensions of credit and sales to financially troubled entities

Bankruptcy

Our team has extensive experience representing clients in bankruptcy court and assisting them in obtaining repayment of debt and recovery of collateral, including one attorney certified as a Creditor’s Rights Specialist by the American Board of Certification. We have handled virtually every type of issue that arises in bankruptcy reorganization and liquidation cases as well as in receivership cases, plans of arrangement, loan forbearance and extension agreements, and other non-bankruptcy workouts and restructurings, including:

• Representation in all aspects of reorganizations, including negotiating post-petition financing, contesting financing arrangements and plan confirmations, protecting the interests and collateral of creditors, and obtaining relief from the automatic stay
• Bankruptcy-related litigation, including preference, fraudulent transfer, and other avoidance actions, setoff and reclamation claims, discharge and dischargeability matters, and executory contracts and leases
• Representation of financial institutions and creditors in claims arising from distressed credit situations or counterclaims brought by debtors alleging impropriety or breach of duties in performance and enforcement of loan obligations

Creditors’ Rights Litigation

Our team includes several experienced litigators who have represented clients in state and federal courts throughout North Carolina and South Carolina. We regularly handle:

• Defense of lender liability claims, including breach of contract, bad faith and fraud
• Foreclosure and deficiency actions
• Enforcement of security agreements under UCC Article 9
• Commercial paper disputes under UCC Article 3
• Claim and delivery actions for personal property collateral
• Garnishment and attachments
• Collection actions
• Guaranty enforcement actions
• Post-judgment enforcement
• Title disputes
• Receiverships