Taylor Speers
Partner
Overview
Taylor Speers is a financial services attorney in Holland & Knight's Dallas office. Mr. Speers focuses his practice on structured finance transactions, with an emphasis on the financing of residential mortgage loans, mortgage servicing rights and servicing advance receivables.
Mr. Speers represents clients with respect to purchases and sales of mortgage servicing rights, whole loans and excess servicing strips; repurchase and other financing facilities (including those collateralized by residential loans, mortgage servicing rights, excess servicing spread, servicing advance receivables, unsecured consumer loans and other residential and consumer loan assets); mortgage servicing right securitization structures; servicing and origination platform acquisitions; and other related matters.
In addition to his extensive experience in the residential mortgage space, Mr. Speers routinely represents clients in connection with marketplace lending programs and related financings. His representation ranges from the negotiation of applicable program documents with platforms and originating banks to structuring and negotiating finance facilities collateralized by the underlying loans.
Mr. Speers previously served as the head of the transactional in-house legal group for a leading nonbank residential mortgage originator and servicer. He directly handled or managed all servicing right acquisitions, entity mergers and acquisitions, takeout investor trades, servicing advance and warehouse financing arrangements, vendor agreements, branch lease agreements, corporate secretarial functions and other transactional matters for the company.
While in law school, Mr. Speers served as editor of the Cornell Journal of Law and Public Policy.
Representative Experience
- Represented one of the nation's largest residential mortgage originators in connection with establishing numerous residential loan warehouse facilities with a combined capacity of more than $11 billion, including direct repurchase agreements and structured arrangements
- Represented a national residential mortgage loan servicer with respect to 1) the acquisition of servicing rights to approximately $17.7 billion in Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae, Ginnie Mae and private label loans from a national bank, and 2) obtaining consents and approvals necessary to consummate the transfers of servicing and to amend private servicing agreements to allow for financing of servicing advances
- Represented a national residential mortgage loan servicer and its real estate investment trust (REIT) affiliates in connection with establishing numerous mortgage servicing rights financing facilities, with a combined capacity of approximately $2 billion relating to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mortgage loans
- Represented multiple national loan servicers and their affiliates in connection with establishing securitization programs issuing term notes and variable funding notes collateralized by mortgage servicing rights pertaining to Ginnie Mae and Fannie Mae mortgage loans
- Represented multiple funds in connection with establishing numerous marketplace lending purchase programs, pertaining to unsecured consumer loans, across from some of the largest originators/sellers in the industry
- Represented a national residential mortgage loan servicer in establishing one of the earliest servicing advance facilities relating to prime Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mortgage loans following the onset of COVID-19 and related forbearance programs (prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, practically all servicing advance facilities related to subprime loans and/or smaller servicers)
- Represented a national non-bank lender in providing approximately $400 million in financing for the acquisitions of excess servicing spread and in-person contractual rights relating to agency and non-agency residential loans that were acquired through numerous fund-managed entities
Credentials
- Cornell Law School, J.D.
- Oklahoma State University, B.S., Finance, Commercial Bank Management, summa cum laude
- District of Columbia
- New York
- Texas
- Dean's List, Cornell Law School, 2006
- CALI Excellence for the Future Award, Research and Writing, Cornell Law School, 2006
- Honors College Degree, Oklahoma State University, 2005
- College Honors Award in Business Administration, Oklahoma State University, 2005
- General Honors Award, Oklahoma State University, 2003
- Honors College Ambassador, Oklahoma State University, 2002
- Phi Kappa Phi
- Beta Gamma Sigma
- Phi Eta Sigma