ALBANY, NEW YORK — Lippes Mathias partners Leigh A. Hoffman and Matthew L. Hosford spoke at an Albany Law School Business Law Society panel discussion focusing on career opportunities for business law students, highlighting advice on overcoming challenges with clients, work-home life considerations, billable hours, characteristics of outstanding associates, law firm operations, and the importance of understanding clients’ businesses when providing legal solutions.

Leigh Hoffman’s practice regularly involves commercial litigation and dispute resolution.  She represents national lenders in matters involving complex consumer and commercial bankruptcies. She has also represented numerous bankruptcy trustees, creditor’s committees, and commercial clients in large liquidation cases dealing with preferences, fraudulent conveyances, and insider transfer recoveries.  She serves as national counsel for an international auto-finance lender, coordinating all aspects of bankruptcy fraudulent conveyance litigation defense.  She also assists in-house counsel in drafting RFPs, SLAs and SOW for clients utilizing outside bankruptcy vendors. Hoffman provides counseling on consumer finance regulatory compliance to national lenders. She regularly addresses comprehensive federal and state regulatory compliance issues related to consumer leasing, consumer finance, automotive financing, collections, legal risk management, credit reporting, and governmental examinations.  Her practice focuses on drafting personal property financing and leasing agreements and related program documents. She assists clients in developing consumer lending policies, consumer lending guidelines and conducts in-house training tailored to those policies and best practices. Ms. Hoffman is an active volunteer in the capital district community and is currently serving as a Member of the Board of Directors for Ronald McDonald House Charities of the Capital Region.

Matthew Hosford has more than 20 years of experience representing clients in corporate, contractual and transactional matters. He provides legal services to hospitals, ambulance providers, physicians and other licensed professionals, nursing homes, home care agencies, trade associations, corporate entities, and other health and non-health care clients with business and transactional needs. Contracts on which he has advised run the gamut from asset and stock purchase agreements to commercial leases and consulting agreements. He has particular experience in advising New York and out-of-state clients on corporate practice issues and related management services agreements for the various licensed professions. Hosford’s corporate experience involves the formation of corporate entities, preparation of corporate organizational documents such as bylaws, shareholder, operating and joint venture agreements. He has substantial experience working with not-for-profit corporations, including formation, reorganization, dissolution, asset transfer, tax-exempt applications, compliance with state and federal regulatory requirements, and governance issues. In addition, Hosford has developed a unique knowledge set to address the array of legal issues faced by medical spas. He regularly counsels medical spa clients on corporate structure, licensure and regulatory matters to ensure they are in compliance.

Lippes Mathias is a full-service law firm with nearly 170 attorneys serving clients regionally, nationally, and internationally. With offices in Buffalo, Albany, Rochester, Long Island, New York, and Saratoga Springs, N.Y.; Greater Toronto Area; Chicago, Ill.; Jacksonville, Fla.; Cleveland, Ohio; San Antonio, Texas; and Washington, D.C., the firm represents publicly and privately-owned companies, private equity and venture capital firms, real estate developers, financial institutions, municipalities, governmental entities, and individuals.