Joel R. Thielen > Vedder Price > Chicago, United States > Lawyer Profile

Vedder Price‘s ‘experience and expertise are unmatched’. The firm’s global transportation finance team fields asset finance and securitization specialists from Chicago, New York, DC, Dallas, San Francisco and Los Angeles, as well as from London and Singapore. Representing lessors, lenders, manufacturers, government agencies, equity investors and operators, the team acts on rail asset-related domestic and international leasings as well as on debt financing, and its transactional experience ranges from railcar purchases and sales to complex securitizations of railcar portfolios. The team additionally assists equity investors with acquiring and establishing new railcar leasing platforms as well as with structuring strategic joint ventures with railcar lessors and manufacturers. Michael Draz is a specialist in rail financing structures involving securitizations, warehouse loan facilities, cross-border operating and leveraged leases, and portfolio acquisitions and divestitures. John Bycraft, Clay Thomas in Los Angeles, and Jillian Greenwald ‘have probably done more railcar financing transactions than any other team in the country’. The practice also includes New York-based transportation finance expert Jeffrey Veber, while Geoffrey Kass is global transportation finance practice chair.  In a boost to the team, railcar financing structure specialist Joel Thielen was promoted to shareholder in March 2023. All attorneys named are based in Chicago unless otherwise mentioned.