Doneene Damon

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Doneene K. Damon 
Doneene Damon
Richards, Layton & Finger, P.A.
WilmingtonDE

Doneene Damon’s extraordinary leadership includes her roles as the president of Richards Layton, co-chair of the firm’s Business Department, and chair of the Corporate Trust and Agency Services Group.

Doneene focuses her practice on formation and operational issues relating to Delaware statutory trusts and Delaware and New York common law trusts in all types of commercial and business transactions, representing issuers, underwriters, investors, and trustees. Doneene advises clients on the use of common law trusts, statutory trusts, owner trusts, master trusts, series trusts, and titling trusts in connection with capital markets transactions.

Considered “terrific” and praised as “experienced, careful, smart and very personable” (Chambers USA), in 2021 alone, Doneene was named among the Philadelphia Business Journal’s Diversity Leaders in Business, the News Journal’s Most Influential Delawareans, Savoy Magazine’s Most Influential Black Lawyers, and a Women, Influence & Power in Law Managing Partner of the Year.

Her practice includes representing banks and trust companies in connection with their trust and agency services under Delaware and New York law in various commercial transactions, including their roles as trustee, collateral agent, verification agent, custodian, master servicer, depository agent, securities intermediary, paying agent, registrar and transfer agent, and exchange agent.

In addition, Doneene represents health-care clients in all types of commercial and transactional matters, including the purchase and servicing of health-care receivables and the issuance of tax-exempt bonds.

She also served as primary Delaware counsel in a series of first-to-market structured finance transactions employing the use of blockchain distributed ledger technology.

Doneene’s varied corporate trust transactional practice includes

  • asset-backed securities, including auto loans and leases, credit cards, student loans, consumer loans, residential mortgages, home equity loans, equipment leases, litigation settlements, insurance policies, and intellectual property;
  • collateralized loan obligations;
  • cross-border leasing transactions;
  • mutual funds and exchange traded funds;
  • health care receivables;
  • liquidation trusts;
  • voting trusts;
  • independent director and independent manager;
  • private equity funds;
  • defeasance transactions;
  • royalty trusts;
  • liquidation trusts; and
  • voting trusts.

She is also experienced in

  • capital securities and hybrid capital securities;
  • mutual funds, exchange traded funds, and private equity funds; and
  • collateralized loan obligations, cross-border leasing transactions, project finance transactions, and defeasance transactions.

PRACTICES

Corporate Trust & Agency Services

Structured Finance

EDUCATION

  • Temple University School of Law, J.D., cum laude, 1992
  • St. Joseph's University, B.S., cum laude, Accounting, 1989

RECOGNITION

  • American College of Commercial Finance Lawyers, Fellow
  • American Bar Foundation, Fellow
  • Chambers USA, since 2010
  • The Best Lawyers in America, since 2017; Wilmington, DE Securitization and Structured Finance Law Lawyer of the Year, 2022
  • The Legal 500, 2021
  • Super Lawyers, since 2018
  • Delaware Today Top Lawyer, 2021
  • Managing Partner of the Year—Law Firm, Women, Influence & Power in Law Awards, 2021
  • Diversity Leaders in Business, Philadelphia Business Journal, 2021
  • Most Influential Delawareans, News Journal, 2021
  • Most Influential Black Lawyers, Savoy magazine, 2021, 2018
  • National Association of Professional Women, VIP Woman of the Year Circle, 2015-2016
  • Jean Allard Glass Cutter Award, American Bar Association, 2015
  • National Diversity Council, Leadership Excellence in the Law Award, 2014
  • Pennsylvania Diversity Council, Leadership in Law, 2014
  • Temple University Beasley School of Law, Gallery of Success, 2014
  • The International Women’s Review Board for Excellence in Law
  • YWCA Trailblazer Award

BAR ADMISSIONS

  • Delaware, 1992
  • District of Columbia, 1994
  • New York, 2012

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