About

Vincent Buccola is a Professor of Law at the University of Chicago Law School, where his teaching and research focus on corporate management and finance, with a particular emphasis on the law of leveraged finance, distress, restructuring, and bankruptcy. He received his JD with High Honors from the University of Chicago Law School in 2008, where he was a member of the Law Review and received the MVP2 Fellowship in Law & Economics. Buccola also earned a BA with High Honors in History from Wesleyan University in 2003. His professional background includes clerking for Judge Frank H. Easterbrook of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and practicing as a trial lawyer at Bartlit Beck. He began his academic career as a Bigelow Fellow and spent a decade on the faculty of the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania before returning to Hyde Park. Buccola has held various academic positions, including Visiting Associate Professor of Law at the University of Chicago Law School and Associate Professor of Legal Studies & Business Ethics at the Wharton School. His scholarly work includes numerous journal articles and book chapters related to bankruptcy law, corporate reorganization, and creditor rights.

Research topics

• Economics
• Business
• Financial system
• Process management
• Management
• Finance
• Monetary economics

Selected publications

• Getting to yes: the role of coercion in debt renegotiations

  The Journal of Legal Analysis · 2025-01-01

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract This article develops a comprehensive account of the methods of consent solicitation broadly construed. We offer four principal contributions. First, we identify the features of a solicitation that can produce coercive intercreditor dynamics. Second, we document the possibility of coercive methods under standard bond and loan contracts. Third, we show that economic considerations can justify coercion. Fourth, we conclude that the most coercive prevailing techniques cannot be so easily justified and propose an approach to construing debt contracts that would restrain what are likely the most value-destructive solicitation methods without condemning longstanding and plausibly value-enhancing techniques.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Bankruptcy Judging After Williamson

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01

  preprintOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• The Backstop Party

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01 · 1 citations

  preprintOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• The Loan Market Response to Dropdown and Uptier Transactions

  The Journal of Legal Studies · 2024-06-01 · 4 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Two innovative methods of subordinating first-lien lenders to newly issued debt—so-called dropdown and uptier transactions—have become important options when a restructuring looms. We weigh concerns about borrowers’ power and the loan market’s capacity to produce efficient contracts by examining the extent to which the terms of newly originated loans changed after two salient transactions: J. Crew’s dropdown, in 2016, and Serta Simmons’s uptier, in 2020. Our primary result is a contrast. Loans originated after the Serta transaction became much more likely to block uptier transactions, which suggests that loan contracts can adjust rapidly to curtail borrowers’ flexibility. Conversely, the frequency of loans susceptible to a dropdown transaction changed little after the J. Crew transaction, which suggests that giving borrowers flexibility to repledge collateral may be valuable. In a range of loans, the optimal contract may permit borrowers to subordinate lenders by one means but not the other.

  PublisherDOI

• Getting to Yes: The Role of Coercion in Debt Renegotiations

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2024-01-01

  preprintOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Price Discipline for Non-Price Loan Terms

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2024-01-01 · 2 citations

  preprintOpen access
  PublisherDOI

• Corporate expression

  Edward Elgar Publishing eBooks · 2023-08-11

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  The second, expanded edition of the acclaimed Encyclopedia represents a major update of the most authoritative reference work in the field of law and economics and the nine print volumes are now released online as a single integrated product.

  PublisherDOI

• Efficacious Answers to the Non-Pro Rata Workout

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2023-01-01 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• The Loan Market Response to Dropdown and Uptier Transactions

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2022 · 8 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Business
  • Financial system
  • Monetary economics
  PublisherDOI

• Sponsor Control: A New Paradigm for Corporate Reorganization

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2022 · 12 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Business
  • Process management
  • Management
  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Ashley C. Keller

  6 shared

• Alex Boni-Saenz

  Chicago Kent College of Law

  2 shared

• Greg Nini

  2 shared

• David A. Skeel

  2 shared

• Todd Henderson

  2 shared

• Douglas G. Baird

  2 shared

• J.B. Heaton

  2 shared

• Saul Levmore

  Chicago Kent College of Law

  2 shared

Awards & honors

• University of Chicago Law School JD, with High Honors (2008)
• Order of the Coif
• MVP2 Fellowship in Law & Economics
• Ann Watson Barber Outstanding Service Award
• Wesleyan University BA, with High Honors in History (2003)