Legal Practice Areas in America

Commercial finance is generally referred to as the function of providing loans or other financing to businesses. Commercial finance attorneys assist borrowers and financers in structuring, negotiating, and documenting commercial loans, loan modifications, restructurings, and other complex financial arrangements, including leveraged buyouts, acquisition financing, and recapitalizations.

Representative clients may include state, regional, and national banks; asset-based lenders; leasing companies; commercial finance companies; syndicated lenders; mezzanine lenders; investment funds; finance companies; institutional lenders; sellers; buyers; suppliers; manufacturers; distributors; retailers; shareholders; and competing creditors.

Areas of focus for commercial finance attorneys may include:

• Equipment, inventory, and receivables financing
• Real estate secured loans
• Lease financing
• Structured and leveraged financing
• Subordinated and mezzanine debt
• Syndicated credits
• Workouts and debt restructuring
• Lien creation and perfection
• Subordination agreements
• Equity participations
• Senior secured credit financing
• Subordinated debt and other mezzanine financing
• Loan sales and participation
• Swaps and other derivative products
• Letters of credit and other credit and liquidity support devices
• Enforcement and collection actions
• Security agreements
• Project financing
• Acquisition and development loans
• Debtor-in-possession financing
• Construction loans
• Venture capital
• Mezzanine financing/bridge loans
• Bond financing
• Bridge loans
• Uniform Commercial Code (Article 9)

Commercial finance practices vary greatly from firm to firm. For example, some smaller, specialized firms focus on providing a narrow scope of services (e.g., real estate secured loans) to a focused client base (e.g., state banks), while other larger, full-service firms provide many or all of the services listed above to a broad range of lender and borrower clients.