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Our
firm has extensive long-term experience in representing
financial institutions and pursuing claims against financial
institutions.
Lewis
Page has 18 years of prior experience representing a major
regional bank holding company, and its Alabama banks, in a
wide variety of counseling and litigation matters. He has 20
years of experience in representing credit unions. In
addition, he has represented the Federal Deposit Insurance
Corporation, the National Credit Union Association, the Resolution Trust
Corporation, and the former
Federal Home Loan Bank Board in litigation involving institutions subject to receivership, liquidation, and conservatorship proceedings.
Lewis Page has represented the federal banking agencies or a
major claimant in most of the major bank failures in
Alabama.
What
differentiates Page Law Firm from most banking lawyers in
Alabama, is that we no longer represent the large Alabama banks.
We are thus generally free from conflicts of interest
involving a bank, and free from any interest in generally protecting the
commercial banking industry. Business clients may have
great difficulty finding experienced banking lawyers who will
pursue aggressive litigation against the banking industry,
since even though particular lawyers may not represent the particular bank,
they and their firm continue to represent commercial banking
interests. Banks use enormous numbers of lawyers for general
representation, drafting, loan closing, real estate
closings, bond financing, collections, and other ordinary
banking functions.
One
often overlooked conflict of interest involves bank trust
departments Bank trust departments act as executor or
trustee under a will or trust. Lawyers and law firms who
draft wills or trusts for their clients designating a
particular bank trust department as executor or trustee are
often later employed to represent the bank trust department in
the handling of the estate or trust. This may be a
steady flow of bank business to lawyers who would generally
not consider themselves to be representing a bank.
Page Law Firm does continue to represent credit unions, either
directly or through appointments from insurance
companies. Thus, we do exercise caution in
choosing clients and issues to litigate in order to protect
our relationship with our credit union clients.
Page Law Firm also represents smaller banks in claims against other
banks, often of substantially larger size.
Disputes
arise between banks and their customers on issues such as:
- Checks
-- stop payments, altered, forged, stale dated, returned
- Deposits
-- availability, improper postings, check
collections
- Deposit
accounts -- ownership, rights of third-parties,
garnishment, freezes
- Embezzlement
-- claims against your bank and other banks
- Erroneous
postings -- correction, statutory rights,
damages
- Lending
commitments -- home equity and other credit lines,
construction loans
- Letters
of credit -- avoiding draws, injunctions against
payment
- Merchant
card services -- charge backs, processing
delays
- Multiple
signature accounts -- joint accounts, payable on death,
UGMA
- Powers
of attorney -- validity, breach of duty by attorney,
revocation
- Privacy
of records -- subpoenas, disclosure, litigation
- Wire
transfers -- reversing, correcting, tracing proceeds
- Use
of collateral -- cash collateral, blocked accounts,
securities
- Trustee
performance -- fiduciary duties, investments,
distributions
Page Law Firm can assist clients in resolving such issues as well
as a wide range of other banking problems. We advise,
investigate, negotiate, arbitrate and litigate.
For
small financial institutions, we can assist in resolving
disputes with large banks involving correspondent accounts,
late returns, overnight fed funds purchases, loan
participations, and other banking issues.
If
you have experienced an embezzlement from your business
involving your bank, you should contact your lawyer
immediately. There are many actions that a lawyer and
client need to consider within the first few minutes of
discovery of an embezzlement, chief among them being what to
do before you contact the bank. Bank customers
should assume that the bank will protect the bank's interests in dealing with an embezzlement.
The customer's and the bank's interests are substantially
different.
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Businesses
Executives and sales persons
Financial institutions
Insurance companies
Consumers
Business
Consumers
Banking, and lending
Class actions
Contracts
Computers and software
Consumer rights
Covenants not to compete
Credit unions
e-commerce
Embezzlement
Employee benefits
Executive terminations
Insurance
Internet
Law firm breakups
Legal ethics
Ownership disputes
Trade secrets
Trademarks
Unpaid sales commissions
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