The financial crisis that started with subprime loans collapsing has spread beyond the mortgage market to credit markets in general. Combined with unfavorable exchange rates, business and personal bankruptcies, deficit spending and high energy prices, we have a systemic slowdown in the economy, which has already led to increased claims incidence and severity.
Wilson Elser has seen this pattern before, and we have the necessary experience and skill to deal with it. We have assembled a multidisciplinary team of accomplished lawyers from a variety of practice areas to handle the myriad legal and litigation issues faced by our clients that will spring from the credit markets crisis. We provide a full-service approach to our clients, which includes nationwide, coordinated litigation defense and exposure and risk management counseling in the following fields:
- Professional liability claims
- Commercial contract disputes
- Shareholder derivative lawsuits
- Securities fraud class actions
- Auction-rate securities issues
- Bankruptcy-related matters
A particular emphasis is the defense of professionals caught in the middle of the fray. The professionals potentially affected are not limited to mortgage lenders involved in E&O claims. The impact is spreading to accounting firms, lawyers, real estate professionals, appraisers, loan servicing agents, rating agencies, securities brokers, asset managers, corporate directors and officers, and insurers. In defending each type of credit crisis case, it is important to have attorneys who have represented the given profession for many years, through many prior economic downturns, yet who work in a team that understands the nuances of today'' credit meltdown. The claims will be tort claims, they will be nationwide in breadth, and they will require close coordination to ensure that the positions taken on a cross-professional basis are consistent.
The firm's size and multidisciplinary practice enables it to handle various subprime- and credit markets-related matters and to provide our diverse client base with sophisticated business solutions. Our attorneys have diverse professional backgrounds that they draw on to defend clients. This allows us to provide clients with innovative approaches, experienced advocacy and substantive expertise across numerous fields of law and business.
Our clients include many of the largest banks; financial services and brokerage firms; accounting and law firms; corporate directors and officers; insurance agents and brokers; and both domestic and international insurers. We also represent professionals working in related industries. For example, within the real estate industry, we represent a diverse group including sales agents and brokers, property managers, title insurance agents, mortgage brokers, appraisers, home inspectors and land surveyors.
To read our recent White Paper on the credit crisis, please click here.