Intercreditor Agreements

During my third year of law school, I was convinced that litigation was the game for me. Sure, I never had designs of being Clarence Darrow or Gerry Spence (though I cannot deny dreams of an Atticus Finch moment or two). However, I was convinced that my personality and demeanor (“aggressive,” according to the self-analysis we conducted in our Negotiations course) represented a skill set more suited for the courtroom. Following my Trial Advocacy practical course and a couple of litigation projects while clerking for a private firm, I could not run away from the courthouse quickly enough. Transactional practice would be the life for me. I would never have to worry about litigation or its implications from the safety of the ivory transactional tower.

That being said, my subconscious desire for disillusionment would find continuous opportunities for satisfaction, notwithstanding the perceived bone-white walls and towering heights of transactional practice. Much to my chagrin, I found that courts were deciding cases that impacted my practice on a regular basis. Judicial decisions were not limited to such topics as trusts and estates, torts, family law or securities. What was worse, some of these decisions had the audacity to require modifications to our sacrosanct bank of form documents. To paraphrase the words of one Gunnery Sergeant Thomas “Gunny” Highway, we would need to improvise, adapt and overcome documentation challenges consistently presented by these pesky judicial decisions.