Blank Rome partner Julie Carvalho has been named a Top Woman in Specialty Finance by ABF Journal.
The publication’s 2026 Top Women in Specialty Finance honors women making a significant impact across the specialty finance industry, including dealmakers, credit officers, general counsel, founders, and operators whose work spans asset-based lending, factoring, private credit, and related sectors. This year's class of 48 honorees was nominated by industry peers and selected for their leadership, achievements, and contributions to their firms, clients, and the industry.
The honorees are featured in individual profiles highlighting their career journeys, defining experiences, and insights gained along the way.
To view the 2026 Top Women in Specialty Finance list, please click here.
Julie's honoree profile, as published in ABF Journal, is copied in full below.
Julie Carvalho
Partner
Blank Rome
“Create the environment you want to work in and lead with empathy. Put yourself in the shoes of clients, colleagues — including younger colleagues you supervise — and even opposing counsel. That perspective shapes how I lead, mentor, and build stronger professional relationships.”
Julie Carvalho’s career in finance law is marked by her ability to bring clarity, calm, and practical problem-solving to sophisticated private wealth transactions.
As a partner in Blank Rome LLP’s Finance, Restructuring and Bankruptcy practice in New York, she represents banks, nonbank lenders, and borrowers in unique loan transactions. These deals often involve nontraditional, high value collateral, including artwork, hedge fund, and private equity fund interests, public and private company stock, classic cars, and aircraft.
Carvalho began her career at Herrick Feinstein LLP during the height of the 2008 economic crisis, an experience that gave her a strong foundation early in her career. Before focusing on lending work, she built broad experience across corporate transactions, including IPOs, mergers and acquisitions, and fund formations. That background now helps her advise clients with a practical, well-rounded understanding of both credit and deal structure.
Carvalho is especially valued for her steady judgment under pressure. She is comfortable developing new deal structures and helping clients build lending platforms and products from the ground up.
Her leadership style is grounded in empathy and perspective: she works to understand the goals and concerns of clients, colleagues and opposing counsel so she can help move matters forward efficiently. She also mentors rising professionals by encouraging them to set and revisit both short- and long-term career goals, helping them build sustainable and flexible paths in the legal and finance industries.