Contact Information
Phone: 608.283.6729
Email: lpeck@axley.com
Legal Assistant: Angel Helland
Phone: 608.283.6774
Email: ahelland@axley.com
Laura Peck, a partner in Axley, focuses her practice on an area that has been making global headlines on a daily basis: commercial lending, real estate transactions and general business matters. Her clients are small and large banks, corporations, insurance companies and small businesses. She represents mostly lenders but also borrowers. All benefit from her specialized expertise in complex financial transactions and real estate.
Ms. Peck has worked in the world of finance for more than 20 years. Her experience as in-house counsel at several large and mid-sized institutions gives her a unique ability to understand and respond to her clients’ needs and concerns.
Among her significant representations are a $300 million deal in which she represented the purchaser in a multistate acquisition of shopping centers; a $150 million deal involving development of a hotel, timeshare and waterpark facility; a $15 million deal involving a local bank and the workout of 23 business and real estate loans to 13 related entities; and more.
Ms. Peck’s approach to her work is simple: get to know the client and the client’s projects, and serve as part of a team of trusted advisors. That means walking construction sites, touring manufacturing facilities and building relationships with the many professionals involved in bringing a project to life. Her hands-on approach to her work is the legacy of her grandfather. A minister whom she describes as hard working, warm, welcoming and inclusive, he had a gift for connecting with every person who crossed his path. He remains, she says, her role model.
Because she has worked for many years in finance, insurance and real estate, Ms. Peck is accustomed to helping her clients through both the upswings and the downturns. In down markets, she works on foreclosures and short sales, and helps clients who are dealing with suppression of values – a problem that arises when appraisals are conservative and comparable properties are hard to find. She also helps banks to work with borrowers on agreements that build in protections for both parties, helping lenders give the green light to more projects. When the market is strong, Ms. Peck is busy with a multitude of real estate transactions, one of her favorite practice areas. As the economy improves, Ms. Peck is seeing more new construction and new life for projects that had gotten stuck.
Ms. Peck is a transplant from the East Coast, where she grew up in a town on the Connecticut coast with her twin sister and a younger brother. The daughter of a hardware store owner and an elementary school teacher, Ms. Peck thought she would remain out east until she met her husband, a professional photographer and Wisconsin native, at Jazzfest in New Orleans. She is now an avid Badger and Packer fan, and a devoted mom of two children who play soccer and Little League and attend the Madison public schools. In her free time, she is involved in two book clubs, loves to cook and garden, and teaches Sunday school.
Significant Representations
- Represented a local bank in a loan workout of 23 business and
real estate loans to 13 related entities in Wisconsin aggregating
approximately $15 million
- Represented a regional lender group in an aggregate of $150
million in development and mini-permanent loans to hospitality industry
borrower (hotel, timeshare and water park facility)
- Represented a national lender in a $37 million credit facility
to fund an ESOP transaction for a multistate convenience store operator
- Represented a local lender in a $15 million leasehold financing of a public/private educational facility
- Assisted as underwriter's counsel in a $130 million bond issuance by a state authority
- Represented landlords and tenants in leases of retail, healthcare, office and hospitality facilities
- Acted as purchaser's local counsel in a $300,000,000 multistate acquisition of shopping centers
- Represented the seller of a horse farm and stable operation
- Represented the purchaser of a parking garage complex from a municipal authority
Admissions, Associations and Achievements
- Member, Access Community Health Center Development Council
- Member, Dane County Bar Association
- Former board member, Downtown Rotary Club of Madison
- Member, Connecticut Bar Association
- Former Trustee and President, Madison Downtown Rotary Foundation
- Member, State Bar of Wisconsin
- Police Commissioner, Chair of Police and Fire Committee of the Village of Maple Bluff
- Member, former board member, Wisconsin Commercial Real Estate Women (CREW); founding member of Wisconsin CREW
- Member, Wisconsin REALTORS Association, Real Estate Forms Committee
Education
J.D., with high honors, B.A., magna cum laude, University of Connecticut
Articles
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Practice Areas
Business and Corporate, Securities, Real Estate, Zoning, Land Use and Development, Construction, Environmental
, Condominium Development & Conversions, Contract Negotiation & Drafting, Corporate Law, Environmental Regulation & Disputes, Finance, Financial Institutions/Business Finance, Insurance, Lending, Mergers, Acquisitions & Business Reorganizations, Private Equity, Venture Capital
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