The Creditors' Rights Practice Group, which includes an attorney listed in The Best Lawyers in America, provides professional, efficient, and cost-effective legal services to all types of creditors. We seek pragmatic solutions to our clients' problems; and we provide each client with unique, individualized representation. We have the experience, resources, and flexibility to assist clients in every stage of a transaction or court proceeding involving the creditor-debtor relationship. In addition to routine collection actions, we handle sophisticated loan restructuring and workouts, and complex litigation in state, federal, and bankruptcy courts. In addressing issues for our clients, we can be as aggressive as the situation demands. We also can adopt a conciliatory approach to problems if that will better serve our clients' interests. Whatever the case, we provide sound legal judgment and quality legal services to satisfy our clients' legal and business needs.
We represent national, regional, and local banks; commercial finance companies; institutional lenders; insurance and surety companies; local governmental entities; landlords; trustees; individuals; and various other creditors, secured and unsecured, large and small. Our attorneys represent secured and unsecured creditors, litigating in state and federal courts to enforce their rights against defaulting borrowers and guarantors. We handle collection actions, claim and delivery hearings, mortgage foreclosures, fraud cases, money-laundering cases, and cases under the Uniform Commercial Code, and we represent clients in every phase of collection litigation, exercising prejudgment remedies, obtaining a judgment, and using the postjudgment execution process to satisfy the judgment. In cases involving fraud or embezzlement where defendants face the risk of criminal prosecution, we have collaborated with local and state law enforcement officials, which often obtains better leverage for our clients.
Although we take pride in our results in complex litigation, we are also proud of our ability to handle routine collection matters efficiently and economically. We also have substantial experience in mortgage foreclosure actions, having conducted foreclosures against multimillion-dollar corporations, farming operations, and individual borrowers. We represent several statewide banks and handle foreclosure proceedings in all 100 counties. Our litigation experience also extends to defense work, where we defend our clients in suits involving the federal and state fair debt collection practices acts and other lender liability claims. In all of our cases, we provide our clients with the experience, efficiency, and legal innovation necessary to achieve the best result in the most expeditious and economical manner.
Another area of focus for the attorneys in this group is loan workouts. When a lender suspects that its borrower is in danger of default, or when the borrower defaults on its obligations, we counsel our lender clients in the most effective methods of structuring a loan workout. We also negotiate the restructuring of real estate and corporate transactions on behalf of our clients, with an eye to avoiding bankruptcy where possible. We adopt as tough or conciliatory an approach as the situation merits. We also draft all documentation necessary for a loan restructuring and workout, tailoring documents to place our clients in the most secured position possible, and we counsel our clients on how to avoid many of the lender liability pitfalls that lurk in the law.
We have represented clients in loan restructuring and workouts involving a vast array of borrowers, including corporations and partnerships in high‑tech, manufacturing, retail, and distribution, as well as agricultural concerns of various size. Where corporate, environmental, technological, or other issues arise, we have the breadth of knowledge and resources to address and resolve these issues and maximize our client's position.
Another focus area is bankruptcy. We represent clients in every phase of bankruptcy proceedings, including financial restructuring, workouts, and bankruptcy litigation, and we routinely represent creditors in Chapters 7, 11, and 13 cases. We have an active practice in the Eastern District of North Carolina and we also handle cases in the Middle and Western districts.
Our broad experience allows us to serve clients in all bankruptcy matters, such as having a bad‑faith bankruptcy filing dismissed, seeking relief from the automatic stay, or safeguarding our clients' rights in the bankruptcy. We advocate for our clients concerning bad‑faith issues, postpetition financing issues, negotiation of Chapter plans, litigation of preference claims and fraudulent conveyance claims, and claims‑objection litigation. In sum, we have the experience and legal acumen to resolve any issue that might arise in the bankruptcy context.
