Legal Opinion of Borrower's Counsel Due Diligence Checklist

Summary

This checklist covers diligence items an attorney will need to confirm as backup prior to issuing a legal opinion as counsel to borrowers and guarantors in connection with a credit agreement. Legal opinions are an important component of the due diligence data trail in most financing transactions, in part, because legal opinions ensure that a law firm must conduct its own diligence in addition to any business diligence performed by the lenders. Once the firm has placed its imprimatur upon a legal conclusion and issued a legal opinion, the firm's reputation, its professional standing and potentially its assets (as well as those of its partners) are put at risk if such conclusions turn out to be incorrect.