Stephen A. Husman
Steve Husman has practiced law in South Carolina since 1977, after serving on active military duty during the Vietnam War Era as an Army JAG in Asia and Europe. As a result of his years of extensive federal criminal trial experience, Steve has always felt at home in the courtroom in his various civil law practices in South Carolina. Steve now spends the majority of his time on business litigation matters, focusing primarily on real estate and personal property security issues.
A particularly important aspect of Steve’s business practice has been the representation of banks and other financial entities. From the late 1980’s through approximately 2000 he was the lawyer for several banks, and served as the only outside counsel for a particular regional bank, which later merged into one of today’s largest national banks. This representation, during economic downturn periods, allowed Steve to gain important experience in the rehabilitation of commercial borrowers and properties that were security for bank loans. Often these failures resulted in the careful balance of litigation, transactional work and negotiation in order to maintain value for the bank.
More recently, because of his business and banking experience, Steve represents small and mid-sized businesses in efforts to reform their business models to be more competitive, particularly as relates to borrowing from banks and other financial institutions. Because of the economic downturn that began in 2007, Steve actively represents attorneys, accountants and security specialists involved in professional malpractice matters resulting from land-based business failures or near-failures.
When not spending time with his wife and three daughters, Steve actively participates in a number of athletic endeavors, including golf, tennis, snow skiing and ocean sports.
“I combine my diverse business background with extensive civil and criminal litigation experience to provide the maximum advantage for my clients.”
Representative Matters
Real Property
Represented a real property developer and owner of a complex of architecturally interesting former mills, which he was developing into rental property units for use as student housing. The bank, which was the primary source of funding, called the loans due, resulting in a complex lawsuit, a series of other claims by other creditors and then a bankruptcy filing. Steve helped navigate the situation to a final settlement that allowed time for the developer to coordinate a purchase of the property by a nationally known developer of student-housing properties. He assisted the client in closing on the transaction, resulting in a favorable solution for the client.
Served as counsel for a minority-interest business partner who owned a number of resort area properties, including a large music venue, with another majority-interest partner, who was attempting to distribute an unfair percentage of the losses from the music venue to Steve’s client and otherwise exclude him from his interest in other assets of the jointly owned business entity. Complex litigation resulted between all of the various creditors and principals involved. The majority-interest partner attempted to prevail, through extensive pretrial procedures and negotiation, but was forced to incur the vast majority of the losses. Steve’s minority-interest client maintained his due interest in other assets of the business entity.
Represented a business partner who owned a number of high-end women’s clothing retail stores in the mid-Atlantic and southeast regions of the U.S. The client owned these stores equally with another business partner, who exercised power disproportionate to that partner’s equal ownership and attempted to exclude Steve’s client from the business. Complex litigation ensued. Through extensive pretrial procedures and motion arguments, together with subsequent extensive negotiations, the opposing partner paid Steve’s client fair-value for his interest. Steve’s client has since set up his own multi-state chain of high-end women’s clothing stores and is successfully directly competing with the former partner.