Delmar K. Banner, partner, is a graduate of the University of Illinois Colleges of Agriculture (1967) and Law (1971). He serves as Adjunct Professor of Agricultural Law and Finance and as Vice Chair of the Center for Farm and Rural Business Finance at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. His teaching responsibilities have included courses in Agricultural Law, Environmental Law and Veterinary Jurisprudence. From 1993 until October 1999, Mr. Banner was a partner in the Champaign office of Hinshaw & Culbertson. Prior to that, he was engaged in general practice with the Champaign firm of Banner, Sudeth & Lietz. Previously Senior Vice President and General Counsel for the Federal Intermediate Credit Bank of St. Louis, Banner was Vice President - Farm Credit for the National Council of Farmers Cooperatives, Washington, D.C. and was President and CEO of the Farm Credit Council, the Washington-based trade association representing Farm Credit Banks and association nationwide. Mr. Banner is admitted to practice in all State courts in Illinois and Missouri and before the U.S. District Court for the Central District of Illinois and the United States Supreme Court. He is a member of the Illinois, Missouri and Champaign County Bar Associations and a former director of the American Agricultural Law Association. He is a member of the American Bar Association and its Commercial Financial Services Committee, Subcommittee on Agricultural and Agri-Business Finance and its Task Force on Revisions to Article Nine of the Uniform Commericial Code. He has been a principal draftsman of legislation at state and federal level including amendments to Article IX of the Illinois Grain Code. He has written and presented seminars to bankers and other lenders as well as farm cooperative and commodity groups in twelve states in numerous areas related to commercial and agricultural finance including asset based financing; officer and director liability; lender liability; work-out al�ernatives and bankruptcy; and environmental liability issues in ag and commerical lending; organizational structure and financial planning.

Areas of Practice: business, estate and transitions planning, probate, asset-based financing, farm and agribusinesss organizations and finance, cooperatives and other not-for-profits, general corporate, farm and commercial real estate and leasing, production contracting, secured transactions, work-outs, and government affairs.