When a client, customer, or counterparty enters financial distress, the consequences ripple across every aspect of a business relationship, from outstanding receivables and pending contracts to real estate leases and ongoing transactions. SA&M's Commercial Finance, Insolvency & Specialty Lending practice is a natural extension of the corporate, transactional, and litigation work we do every day on behalf of our clients, and it ensures that the same team that knows your business can protect your interests when the financial environment around it becomes complicated.

Commercial finance issues often surface mid-transaction, when a counterparty's credit facility creates unexpected complications. They emerge when a growing company needs access to capital structures that conventional bank financing can't accommodate. And they compound when financial distress (a customer's, a vendor's, or a client's own) reshapes the terms of every business relationship it touches. SA&M's Commercial Finance, Insolvency & Specialty Lending Practice Group addresses all of it, bringing purpose-built expertise to the intersection of secured lending, corporate finance, and financial distress, and ensuring that clients have access to that depth of knowledge at every stage of a transaction or dispute.

SA&M's commercial finance and specialty lending attorneys represent lenders and borrowers across a broad range of business finance transactions, from asset-based lending and accounts receivable financing to mezzanine debt, bridge loans, sale-leaseback arrangements, and other non-traditional credit facilities. We serve as regular outside general counsel to factoring companies and asset-based lenders, and we regularly advise growing companies and entrepreneurs on flexible capital solutions that go beyond conventional bank financing. Our attorneys structure, negotiate, and document secured lending transactions, perfect and enforce security interests under the UCC, and advise on intercreditor arrangements, guaranties, and the full range of legal issues that arise when businesses access and deploy capital.

When a client, customer, or counterparty enters financial distress, those consequences ripple across every aspect of a business relationship from outstanding receivables and pending contracts to real estate leases and ongoing transactions. The practice's insolvency and creditors' rights capabilities are a natural extension of the commercial finance work we do every day, ensuring that the same team protecting a client's interests in a financing transaction can represent them effectively if that relationship becomes complicated. We represent businesses and individuals across the full spectrum of chapter 7, 11, and 13 proceedings, including secured and unsecured creditors, debtors-in-possession, landlords, creditor committees, and bankruptcy trustees. Our attorneys bring the same entrepreneurial, practically minded approach that defines SA&M's broader practice, identifying risk, developing strategy, and pursuing the most efficient path to the best available outcome.

Our transactional representation includes:

• Assignments for the Benefit of Creditors
• Filing Proofs of Claim
• Obtaining Relief from the Automatic Stay
• Negotiating and Drafting Debtor-in-Possession Financing Transactions
• Negotiating and Drafting Reaffirmation Agreements
• Out-of-Court Workouts and Debt Restructuring
• Asset Purchases and Acquisitions from Bankruptcy Estates
• Trustee Representation
• Plan Objections
• Expert Witness Services in Bankruptcy and Insolvency Matters

When disputes arise, whether originating within bankruptcy proceedings or carrying over from state or federal court actions filed before a bankruptcy filing, our attorneys are prepared to prosecute and defend our clients' interests aggressively. Our litigation practice covers the full range of contested insolvency matters:

• Prosecution and Defense of Avoidance Claims, including Preference, Fraudulent Transfer, and Non-Dischargeability Actions
• Prosecution and Defense of Discharge Litigation
• Prosecution and Defense of Lien Priority Disputes, Claim Objections, and Other Contested Matters

Our Commercial Finance, Insolvency & Specialty Lending Practice Group is led by Steven N. Kurtz, a nationally recognized commercial finance attorney whose practice spans complex transactional matters and commercial litigation in equal measure. Kurtz serves as outside general counsel to several factoring and asset-based lending firms, and is a respected expert witness and consultant in commercial finance disputes. A regular contributor to the International Factoring Association's Commercial Factor magazine, he has authored more than 50 articles on commercial finance law since 2019, covering topics ranging from UCC security interests and chapter 11 dynamics to digital asset financing and emerging regulatory developments affecting the industry.