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Joseph A. Scherer is a partner in the Cooley Business department and heads the Firm's Credit Finance practice group and the Firm's Debt Securities practice group.
Mr. Scherer's practice emphasizes the financing of businesses in a variety of contexts, including leveraged buyouts, mergers and acquisitions, asset-based financings, secured financings, "high yield" financings, subordinated debt financings, traditional private placement financings, public and private convertible debt financings, vendor financings and project financings. Mr. Scherer has a particular depth of experience in the structuring, negotiation and workout and restructuring of such debt financings for public companies, private equity investment funds, banks and other financial institutions. Mr. Scherer also has substantial structured financing experience in the telecommunications and project energy industries.
Mr. Scherer has been with the Firm since 1982 but took a leave of absence spending 1986 as a project developer for cogeneration projects and acting as Project Counsel for International Power Technology, Inc. He has since continued to do project finance work for both international and domestic projects in wireless telecom, conventional cogeneration energy projects and renewable energy projects employing various biogas, biowaste, wind, hydro, agricultural waste and solar technologies. Mr. Scherer has most recently represented stakeholders in biofuels restructurings, algae to energy startup financing and collaboration transactions and verified emission reduction projects and sales. He is a regular lecturer for Stanford University's Collaboratory for Research on Global Projects and writes and speaks on the resolution of intercreditor issues in project and related financings.
Mr. Scherer received a J.D. in 1982 from the University of California, Los Angeles, School of Law, where he was associate editor of the UCLA Law Review and graduated in the top 10 percent of his class. Mr. Scherer concurrently earned an M.B.A. from UCLA's Anderson Graduate School of Management, where he concentrated in finance and earned membership to the Beta Gamma Sigma scholastic honor society. At UCLA, Mr. Scherer was selected each year as the recipient of the John M. Olin Fellowship for law and economics. He earned his undergraduate degree in economics from the University of California, Davis, where he graduated Phi Beta Kappa.
Mr. Scherer is a member of the California bar; the Corporation, Banking and Business law section of the American Bar Association; the San Francisco Bank Attorneys Association; the Equipment Leasing Association; the Turnaround Management Association; and the Association for Corporate Growth. Mr. Scherer currently serves on the board of directors of the International Financial Institutions Association in California. He authored "Equity Kickers for Lenders" in the California Business Law Practitioner, Summer 2004 issue, published by the Continuing Education of the Bar. He was named in San Francisco magazine as a Northern California Super Lawyer and has been included in the 2007, 2008 and 2009 editions of The Best Lawyers in America (specialty of Structured Finance Law).
Education- University of California, Los Angeles School of Law
JD, 1982 - University of California, Los Angeles
MBA Finance, 1982, John M. Olin Fellowship, Beta Gamma Sigma - University of California, Davis
BA Economics, 1977, Phi Beta Kappa
Admissions
Memberships
- American Bar Association
- Association for Corporate Growth
- Equipment Leasing Association
- San Francisco Bank Attorneys Association
- Turnaround Management Association
Board Associations
- Member of the Board of Directors, International Financial Institutions Association in California
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