Blank Rome LLP is pleased to announce that Stephen T. Whelan has joined the Firm as a partner in the Financial Services group. For more than 30 years, Mr. Whelan has built a substantial practice in the areas of equipment leasing and structured finance, secured lending, and asset securitization. Mr. Whelan is based in the Firm’s New York office.

“We are pleased to welcome Steve to Blank Rome,” said Alan J. Hoffman, Co-Chairman and Managing Partner. “Steve is a well-respected corporate attorney with a significant reputation and practice that will further enhance our strong Financial Services group, both in New York and across our national footprint.”

Mr. Whelan joins Blank Rome from SNR Denton where he was a member of the Capital Markets practice, concentrating in equipment leasing, asset securitization, public finance, corporate trust and secured lending. He represents originators of financial assets, investment banks, credit enhancers, trustees and investors in the securitization of leases, auto loans, maritime containers and other transportation assets, timeshare mortgage loans, health care receivables, franchise receivables, trade receivables, export receivables, and various other financial assets.

“I have known Steve for several years and was fortunate to succeed him as Chair of the American Bar Association’s Subcommittee on Leasing,” said Financial Services Partner Lawrence F. Flick. “Steve is a known and trusted legal advisor and we look forward to his practice further strengthening Blank Rome’s equipment leasing and structured finance practice in New York.”

Mr. Whelan represents lenders, lessors, trustees and arrangers in lease financings for computers, aircraft, railcars, vehicles, maritime, medical, energy and telecommunications equipment. He is involved in private and government financing of industrial, housing and education projects. Through his structured finance work, Mr. Whelan works with many insurance and banking clients, handling note purchase agreements, term loans, revolving credit facilities and letters of credit. He also represents lessors and secured creditors in workouts or bankruptcy reorganizations involving equipment leases and securitized portfolios.

Prior to SNR Denton, Mr. Whelan was with Thacher Proffitt & Wood LLP, where he was a partner for 31 years and chairman of the Corporate Department. He is a member of the American Bar Association, for which he is the immediate past chair of the Leases and Secured Transactions Subcommittee and a past chair of the Leasing Subcommittee; and a member of the New York State Bar Association. He is an American College of Investment Counsel fellow, an American College of Commercial Finance Lawyers fellow, a member of the American Law Institute, and on the Advisory Council for the Atlantic Legal Foundation. Mr. Whelan is a member of the Equipment Leasing and Finance Association: Legislative and Regulatory Subcommittee, and in 2006, received the Association’s first-ever “Excellence in Leasing” Award. He is also on the Board of Trustees for the Fraunces Tavern Museum, on the Advisory Council for the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University, and the chairman of The Witherspoon Institute in Princeton, NJ. For more than ten years, he has served as a Visiting Lecturer in constitutional law at Princeton University.

Mr. Whelan is admitted to practice in New York, and before the U.S. Supreme Court and the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. He earned his Juris Doctor from Harvard Law School, and his Bachelor of Arts from Princeton University, magna cum laude.