Kenneth D. Peters

Ken Peters builds value for his clients. As a former executive in the oil industry, he brings to every engagement valuable first-hand experience with the entire business lifecycle. This perspective makes him more than a lawyer. He can be a business partner who listens carefully to each client’s goals before recommending a strategy or presenting alternative approaches. He understands the pressure clients face to produce results, and he relishes earning their trust and having candid discussions about difficult business and legal issues that can impact corporate reputation and financial success.

Ken focuses on representing banks, financial institutions, large multi-national corporations and LLCs in all matters related to commercial litigation, financing arrangements and creditor rights. He also represents small and mid-size industrial companies and financing companies in a wide variety of practice areas and industries that call for his strategic, common-sense approach. Clients seek his business and legal counsel on a broad range of issues, including complex bankruptcies, secured transactions, letters of credit, asset foreclosures, commercial collections, workouts, reorganizations, and business disputes.

Ken draws on business insights gained from teaching at the MBA program at the Lake Forest Graduate School of Management and serving on corporate boards. He was one of the highest-rated instructors and served on the curriculum council. In corporate boardrooms, Ken has learned the importance of adhering to missions and to achieving the highest standards of ethics and compliance. He has presented on at least a half dozen occasions to credit personnel, sales personnel, in-house counsel, or upper management of ExxonMobil Oil Company in Houston, Texas; Fairfax, Virginia; Chicago, Illinois; and Saint John, New Brunswick. He has published articles on a broad range of practice areas. Likewise, he frequently presents at continuing legal education seminars. Similarly, he delivered academic lectures on creditor rights issues or additional legal topics at DePaul University; Loyola University; University of Chicago Business School Alumni Association; University of Illinois College of Law; and other venues. Pursuant to invitation, he also served on the University of Illinois College of Law Chicago Program Advisory Board.

Ken resides in Chicago’s northern suburbs with his wife, and he has three children. He spends much of his free time following the Cubs, Blackhawks, USC, UCF and Illinois football. He also has “season tickets” to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

• National outside bankruptcy counsel to several banks and equipment finance companies.
• Solidified the case law affirming a secured lender’s right to pursue cumulative and simultaneous remedies; specifically, foreclosing on collateral (an aircraft) and simultaneously obtaining a deficiency judgment for the full amount due and owing in the United States District Court, Eastern District of Michigan. (He domesticated the judgment in Florida and foreclosed on Florida residence notwithstanding Florida Homestead Laws.)
• Successfully defended a title company against a suit filed by a national bank alleging wrongful raiding of nine employees and more than $100,000,000 in damages.
• Obtained Chapter 11 Plan payments for the entire amount of a seven-figure unsecured trade debt due to an industrial client in the United States Bankruptcy Court, District of Arizona.
• Successfully recovered payment in full of over $3,000,000 on an SBA loan which was secured on environmentally sensitive commercial real estate.
• Developed state of the art transactional documents for SaaS agreements for use in a five-party transaction.
• Provided guidance on a $300,000,000 letter of credit.
• Represented a steel company, with the assistance of environmental and corporate counsel, in its acquisition of distressed competitor steel company.
• Represented the Senior Lender in the Turnaround Management Association’s 2013 Small Company Turnaround of the Year. Forced an aircraft ambulance company into Chapter 11, worked on restructuring the company (including the 363 sale of aircraft). The Senior Lender received a seven-figure lump sum payment, and we re-wrote the debt due to the Senior Lender, which was paid in full.
• Prepared the basic transactional documents currently used by many equipment finance and leasing companies.
• Represented the creditor interests of banks, equipment finance companies or industrial companies in at least 48 states.
• Invited Observer to the Uniform Law Commission & American Law Institute Joint Committee on the Uniform Commercial Code and Emerging Technologies (1999 – 2022), which drafted amendments to Articles 2A and 9 of the Uniform Commercial Code, and wrote new Article 12.

Practices

• Bankruptcy & Restructuring
• Commercial Litigation
• Corporate Finance
• Equipment Leasing & Financing

Industries

• Financial Services
• Transportation & Industrial
• Aviation
• Commercial Real Estate