Don Fitzgerald practices in the area of commercial and consumer litigation, commercial and consumer credit, real estate, and estate planning. During his 20 year legal career, Don has personally litigated hundreds of matters, and as corporate and general counsel he has overseen the management of thousands of litigation matters through outside counsel.
Additionally, Don has operated a residential real estate closing and title practice, acting as a title insurance underwriter for the Florida Attorneys’ Title Fund as well as the Georgia Attorney Title Guaranty Fund.
Don began his legal career as a summer associate and litigator with the highly respected AMLAW 200 firm Shutts & Bowen in Miami. There he worked on a variety of litigation matters, including admiralty, commercial real estate, insurance fraud, insurance coverage, and mass torts defense.
In 1995 Don moved to St. Augustine, Florida to fulfill his dream of having his own practice. There he focused on commercial litigation and residential real estate closings, In 1997 Don was appointed by Florida Governor Lawton Chiles to a four-year term on the 7th Circuit Judicial Nominating Commission.
In 1998 Don moved to the corporate world as General Counsel of OSI Portfolio Services. Headquartered in Atlanta, with over 1,000 employees, OSI was the nation’s largest buyer and manager of distressed consumer debt.
Don oversaw corporate litigation involving consumer and commercial suits, managing over 100 outside law firms representing the company. Don advised senior management and negotiated the purchase and sale contracts of hundreds of loan pools with a wide variety of sellers and buyers.
Don also negotiated financing structures and credit facilities, dealt with employment issues including executive severance agreements, drafted and negotiated strategic alliances, joint ventures, and servicing agreements for various securitized credit pools.
Highlights include negotiating the assumption of servicing of a $1.1 billion pool of securitized receivables from the bankrupt Heilig-Meyers Furniture Company, amending and renewing the company’s revolving $75 million line of credit with a major monoline insurer, and negotiating the establishment of a new $100 million credit facility with Merrill Lynch as a part of the company’s pre-bankruptcy restructuring plan.
After the bankruptcy of OSI, Don obtained funding from two major New York hedge funds and co-founded Endeavor Financial Partners, a purchaser and asset manager of distressed consumer debt pools.
Mr. Fitzgerald served as President and General Counsel. During its six year run, Endeavor invested $25 million in deeply discounted loan pools, comprising 440,000 accounts with a face value of over $1 billion.
Endeavor also completed two corporate acquisitions in the distressed debt space, one a buyer of distressed credit card pools and the second a buyer and servicer of delinquent federal student loans.
Today Don represents both corporate and individual clients in transactional and litigation matters. His broad experience enables him to foresee his clients’ legal challenges and develop practical and pragmatic solutions.
Don has written numerous articles and spoken at various conferences on contract issues, corporate legal compliance programs, corporate risk management, the purchase and sale of consumer receivables, debt pool purchasing, and the regulation of debt collection practices.
He is the author of A Guide To Understanding Purchase & Sale Contracts, winner of the 2008 MSAE Communications Excellence Award, and a contributing editor for the ACA International publication Buying Receivables.
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