Selena Samale

Experience

Outside General Counsel

• Serves as outside general counsel for a large nonprofit healthcare insurance company. Selena handles all contracts and transactional matters and leverages her internal network of subject matter experts as needed.
• Serves as outside general counsel for an electric cooperative. Selena's personal focus has been the management and negotiation of all third-party contracts.
• Served as outside general counsel for a mining company; assisted with contract negotiations to secure engineering, procurement, and construction services, water and other utilities, easements, and other business needs; managed vendor disputes and other operational matters.
• Served as outside general counsel to a consumer lending company; obtained 9-figure financing through combinations of senior and mezzanine loans and family & friends investments; navigated regulatory and licensing matters, ownership changes, and new business developments; assisted in new product development and implementation.
• Implemented and developed a complex ownership structure for an international oil and gas conglomerate with 9-figure assets, ensuring that net ownership targets in dozens of entities and business ventures in various countries were met through equity arrangements and shareholder agreements.

Banking and Financial Services

• Assists community banks in mergers and acquisitions (including bank acquisitions of non-bank entities), capital raises, conversions, branch acquisitions/divestitures, shareholder matters, and contract negotiations with core service providers and other vendors.
• Represents banks and non-bank lenders (and borrowers) in secured financing transactions, including commercial lines of credit, agricultural loans, and transaction-based financing.
• Represents a bankers' bank in developing and managing its customer products, including correspondent services, analytics solutions, and swap agreements; assisted with revisions to a suite of customer documents to improve and streamline the onboarding experience.
• Assisted a national bank in developing an Islamic Finance division with various Shari'ah-compliant loan products; worked with national subject matter experts; provided regulatory advice.
• Assisted consumer lending companies in developing new loan products in compliance with licensing and regulatory regimes.
• Represented a foreign non-depository institution in structuring, negotiating, and managing its financial investments and programs with U.S. partners.

Contracts

Negotiates vendor agreements, both mission critical and miscellaneous

Examples include: engineering, construction, distribution, maintenance, emergency services, hazardous waste removal, janitorial services, landscaping and forestry, drones, equipment purchase, consulting, staffing, technology/software, sponsorships, donations, pilot partnerships, health and wellness, technology and software, agency agreements, secondment agreements, office supply, food service and distribution, commercial leases, etc.

Assist clients in developing form agreements for frequent use in their business operations

Examples include: service provider agreements (e.g., Master Service Agreements with schedules of work and change orders tailored for different types of services), agency agreements, nondisclosure agreements, Requests for Proposal and procurement, equipment and supply agreements, customer contracts and notices, etc.

Complex/specialty contracts

Examples include: power purchase agreements, engineering, procurement, and construction agreements, railroad transportation agreements (intermodal, nonperishable, and perishable/reefer), mergers and acquisitions with a variety of structures, financings (commercial lending, representing lenders and borrowers; simple promissory notes and convertible notes), grant agreements and sponsorship agreements, etc.

Organizational constituent documents

Examples include: articles, bylaws, shareholder agreements, operating agreements, affiliate contracts (e.g., secondment and servicing agreements), reorganization agreements/restructurings, etc.

International

Advises foreign clients in analyzing, structuring, and negotiating investments in the United States. Selena has worked with clients from numerous countries, including Germany, Spain, Mexico, Korea, Haiti, and Kuwait and, through local counsel, has supported operations in Central America, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. Selena is uniquely suited to this role because she is a former exchange student (AFS-Hong Kong 1997-1998), taught English in Hong Kong, and also lived abroad in Argentina.

News

Speaking Engagements

“Lessons Learned From a Cross-Border Acquisition of a Specialty Finance Lender that Became an Operating Subsidiary of a National Bank,” Bank Director's Acquire or Be Acquired Conference, January 2024

“Contract Training for Business,” 2023 Women in Banking Conference, May 2023

Publications

"The Mining Industry Should Not Ignore ESG," Engineering and Mining Journal, June 2023

"Is Your Bank Ready for LIBOR Fallback?" Colorado Banker, June 2023

"Electronic Signatures: A Primer for Navigating during COVID-19" Clarks' Bank Deposits and Payments Monthly, June 2020

"Trends in Virtual Currency," Western Banker: A Publication of Western Independent Bankers, July/August 2018

"Does the FDCPA Apply to Non-Judicial Foreclosures?: Supreme Court to Resolve Circuit Split," Clarks' Secured Transactions Monthly, July 2018

"Electronic Signatures: A Primer," Clarks' Bank Deposits and Payments Monthly, November 2017

Colorado Enacts New Privacy and Cybersecurity Legislation, June 2018