Richard C. Kim

Shareholder, Greenberg Traurig, LLP

40 Under 40 Category: Legal Services
 
Biography:

Richard C. Kim focuses his practice on representing private equity sponsors, public and private borrowers, lead arrangers and lenders in connection with syndicated and bilateral loan financings, including senior secured financings, first lien and second lien financings, domestic and cross-border financings, unsecured financings, acquisition financings and bridge financings.

Richard was selected as an IFLR1000 “Rising Star (New York)” from 2018 through 2020 and as a recipient of The M&A Advisor’s “Emerging Leaders” award in 2017.  Richard serves as the co-hiring chair and the co-career development liaison for the firm’s New York office, and he’s a member of the Secured Finance Network’s New York Chapter and the Association for Corporate Growth (ACG).  Richard also serves as a mentor to diverse law students and associates through his involvement in the Korean American Lawyers Association of Greater New York and the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association. 

Richard received his J.D. from the University of Michigan Law School in 2006, where he served as an executive editor of the Michigan Law Review.  Richard received his B.S., with honors, from Cornell University in 2003.

What is the best professional advice you have been given and how have you implemented it? 

“Business is personal” is a phrase that resonates with every facet of my practice as a corporate finance attorney.  I enjoy spending a significant portion of my time during each day growing client relationships and advising them on their day-to-day and strategic matters, in addition to training and developing our team, and coordinating with and leveraging our firm’s practice area experts.  As a corporate finance attorney, being able to quickly and efficiently gather the collective knowledge of the firm’s experts helps to facilitate our team’s ability to successfully represent our clients.  Furthermore, I’m grateful for the time spent with clients and colleagues and for each of the relationships that we’ve been able to build, and I appreciate the personal nature of our business as I work with clients and colleagues that I respect and trust, which makes the practice even more rewarding.  

How do you define a good leader? 

A good leader must acknowledge that he or she is not alone and operating in a vacuum, but rather, a good leader leads by example, inspires other team members and has a sincere enthusiasm for the business or practice.  A good leader demonstrates effective ways to interact with and earn the trust of clients, to collaborate with colleagues and to mentor and teach younger professionals.  A good leader isn’t simply empowered to make decisions due to his or her position; but, rather they are willing to take on the risk of decision-making and to earn the continued loyalty of the team.  Furthermore, a good leader understands that true loyalty is reciprocal and they find ways to express his or her loyalty for the team in tangible ways that benefit the team, including standing up for the team members during challenging times and ensuring that the team members have the training and resources to do their jobs.  A good leader also needs to understand the company, the nature of the business and the needs of their clients in order to effectively and collaboratively advise the firm’s clients.

What advice do you normally give to the junior talent you mentor?

I’ve been fortunate to work with great junior associates on my team, who are each highly motivated and eager to learn.  I often advise junior associates to embrace their role on the team, and to understand why their role is important to the transaction.  Since I encourage junior associates to be empowered to take ownership of a workstream with respect to a transaction, junior associates are oftentimes coordinating due diligence and disclosure with companies, drafting collateral documentation and assisting in the review of other loan documentation.  Therefore, junior associates play a very important role.  Furthermore, junior associates should be curious about their practice, and I advise them to ask questions, and to followup during and after a transaction with the senior team members, and their mentors.  Oftentimes, this iterative process of asking questions, hearing the answers, and then applying those newly learned concepts to the current and subsequent transactions is how junior associates are able to expand their knowledge base and transactional skillset.  In addition, it has the advantage of also informing the senior members of the team about the breadth and depth of the junior associate’s knowledge, and where they can focus on learning more, which allows for opportunities to invite them to webinars, CLEs and other practice-oriented teaching moments.