Riley is a Chicago-based Partner whose practice sits at the intersection of corporate finance and transactional law. At Mercier & Valez, he represents both buy-side and sell-side clients in middle-market transactions, with a notable concentration of work for companies in manufacturing, industrial services, and healthcare logistics.
What sets Riley apart is his background — before law school at the University of Michigan, he spent four years as a financial analyst, and that lens shows up constantly in how he structures deals, particularly around valuation disputes and earnout mechanics. He's not a generalist by accident; he chose to build a practice narrow enough that he could go deep rather than wide. Clients often bring him in specifically for deals where the financial structure is more complicated than the legal one.
