Alston & Bird announces the election of 23 lawyers to its partnership, effective January 1, 2023. The new partners span eight U.S. offices and 15 practice groups.
“Our new partners have demonstrated steadfast commitment to our most important values – including collegiality, collaboration, and client service,” said Alston & Bird Chairman and Managing Partner Richard Hays. “Their leadership qualities and dynamic practices will contribute to our firm’s long-term success.”
Elected to Alston & Bird’s partnership are:
- Jeffrey Bingham (Dallas) as partner in our Finance Group. He structures and negotiates secured and unsecured financings for a range of private credit and bank lenders, corporate borrowers, and equity sponsors in a variety of lending transactions, including cash flow and asset-backed financings, acquisition financings, cross-border financings, and other financings. He advises clients in many industries, including consumer finance, technology, health care, dental, retail, and consumer products.
- Stephen Blank (New York) as partner in our Financial Restructuring & Reorganization Group, where he counsels borrowers, lenders, investors, agents, ad hoc lender groups, and creditors on distressed and non-distressed financial situations. In addition, his practice encompasses in-court and out-of-court restructurings, forbearance arrangements, debt-for-equity exchanges, intercreditor arrangements, agreements among lenders, Section 363 asset sales, out-of-court distressed investing, and Chapter 15 and cross-border proceedings.
- Stacie L. Cargill (Dallas) as partner in our Finance Group. She represents corporate borrowers, private equity funds, and financial institutions in a variety of domestic and international financing transactions, concentrating on acquisitions and investment financing, asset-based lending, fund finance transactions, and debt restructurings in single-borrower and multiple-borrower, single-lender, agented, and participated syndication arrangements involving a variety of commercial enterprises.
- Jeffrey Carlin (Los Angeles) as partner in our Environment, Land Use & Natural Resources Group. Focusing his practice on complex litigation involving the environment and land use entitlements, he advises clients and litigates cases implicating various state and federal environmental laws such as the California Environmental Quality Act, CERCLA, the Clean Water Act, state water quality laws, and planning and zoning laws. He also defends toxic tort actions and public nuisance cases involving environmental contamination claims.
- Lindsey L. Deere (Charlotte) as partner in our Finance Group, where she advises major financial institutions in their roles as trustees. She helps clients navigate a range of capital markets transactions, focusing on structured finance and other debt offerings. Her varied transactional practice includes representing servicers in the purchase and transfer of servicing rights, mortgage loan restructurings and workouts, and defeasance transactions.
- Daniel J. Felz (Atlanta) as partner in our Privacy, Cyber & Data Strategy Group. He advises clients across industries on global privacy, cybersecurity, technology, and adversarial matters. He leads the execution of data protection compliance and governance programs; negotiates technology, data protection, and data transfer agreements; and helps companies expand their technologies into new, international markets.
- Zachary A. Higbee (Charlotte) as partner in our Intellectual Property Patents Group. He focuses his practice on all aspects of U.S. and international patent prosecution, review, and IP counseling. In addition, he designs comprehensive IP portfolio and transaction strategies involving all aspects of IP that are tailored to his clients’ unique goals. He works with clients to identify, harvest, and protect valuable IP by using forward-looking, cost-effective strategies.
- William W. Hooper (Atlanta) as partner in our Financial Services & Products Group, where he represents FinTech companies, banks, and private equity investors in complex strategic transactions in the U.S. and internationally, including M&A, securities offerings, and strategic investments. He also represents public and private companies in the financial services industry in regulatory, corporate governance, and SEC reporting matters.
- Jake Kaplan (Atlanta) as partner in our Wealth Planning Group and Exempt Organizations Group, where he advises individuals, families, and fiduciaries on tax issues, estate planning strategies, estate administrations, and philanthropic plans. He counsels tax-exempt organizations on myriad specialized tax, governance, formation, and operational issues and represents hospitals, schools, other exempt organizations, and community development entities in federal New Markets Tax Credit (NMTC) financings.
- Kelsey Kingsbery (Raleigh) as partner in our Litigation & Trial Practice Group. She represents clients in a range of complex commercial litigation matters, trials, and appellate proceedings, with a special focus on consumer class action defense, business torts, and contract disputes. She works with commercial clients on major consumer class actions and a variety of other high-claims disputes involving insurance coverage, financial services, and health care.
- Jane B. Lucas (Washington, D.C.) as partner in our Health Care Legislative & Public Policy Group. She helps a variety of health care entities, not for profits, and companies navigate Capitol Hill. With more than a decade of federal government service – including senior positions in the White House, Department of Health and Human Services, and Senate – she develops legislative strategy and works directly with policymakers to execute solutions for her clients.
- Bryan W. Lutz (Atlanta) as partner in our Litigation & Trial Practice Group. Focusing his practice on complex commercial litigation at the intersection of antitrust and technology, he represents clients in trials, arbitration, and appeals to state and federal courts. He handles global disputes for companies in the telecommunications, industrial, and manufacturing industries.
- Kyle S. Navarro (Charlotte) as partner in our Corporate & Business Transactions Group. He counsels private equity sponsors and their portfolio companies in domestic and cross-border corporate and transactional matters, with a focus on acquisitions and dispositions – including mergers, leveraged buyouts, recapitalizations, and purchases and sales of securities, assets, and business units.
- Dan O’Connor (Silicon Valley) as partner in our Intellectual Property Patents Group, where he focuses his practice on patent solicitation and patent portfolio management for a wide variety of technologies, with a particular concentration on high-tech software technologies, electromechanical devices, industrial manufacturing processes, power-storage devices, and Internet-connected hardware. He advises market leaders on the validity and enforceability of competitive patents in their industries and prosecutes a broad range of patent applications.
- Jason R. Outlaw (Atlanta) as partner in our Securities Litigation Group. He defends companies across industries in litigation and regulatory enforcement proceedings, centering his practice on SEC investigations, securities fraud actions, shareholder derivative suits, corporate investigations, and other complex commercial litigation.
- Rajat Rana (New York) as partner in our Litigation & Trial Practice Group, where he represents clients in high-stakes litigation and international commercial and investment treaty arbitrations. He guides companies based in the U.S., Europe, Africa, and India through complex, high-exposure, multijurisdictional disputes before arbitral institutions around the world and in U.S. federal and state courts.
- Daniel M. Reach (Charlotte) as partner in our Federal & International Tax Group. He advises clients on the tax aspects of various domestic and cross-border business transactions, particularly mergers, acquisitions, dispositions, financings, restructurings, and joint ventures. He also regularly advises sponsors of and investors in hedge funds, private equity funds, venture capital funds, real estate funds, and credit funds on the tax aspects of fund formation and operation.
- Jon H. Ruiss, Jr. (New York) as partner in our Finance Group, where he counsels investment banks and other financial institutions on the purchase, sale, and financing of mortgage loans (residential, commercial, and multifamily), mezzanine loans, single-family rental properties, and other mortgage assets. He also negotiates diverse financing arrangements, including master repurchase agreements, term-loan facilities, and syndicated financing.
- Stephen H. Schilling, Ph.D. (Raleigh) as partner in our Intellectual Property Patents Group. He focuses his practice on biotechnology and life sciences patents, including patent application drafting and prosecution, patent counseling and strategic planning, and opinions on patentability, validity, noninfringement, and freedom to operate. In addition, he manages extensive domestic and international patent portfolios for leading biopharmaceutical companies, biotechnology companies, and universities.
- Brad Smyer (Dallas) as partner in our Litigation & Trial Practice Group, where he helps clients navigate complex litigation, government investigations, and whistleblower lawsuits. In addition, he guides health care clients to avoid and resolve compliance issues and government enforcement actions.
- Elaine C. Tapp (Atlanta) as partner in our Corporate & Business Transactions Group. She guides public and private companies and financial sponsors through a range of complex corporate and transactional matters, including acquisitions, divestitures, carveouts, joint ventures, corporate financings, corporate governance, and other general corporate matters.
- Nicholas T. Tsui (Atlanta) as partner in our Intellectual Property Litigation Group, where he centers his practice on patents and patent litigation in the district courts, ITC, and PTAB. His matters relate to such technologies as telecommunications, circuit design, software, mobile applications, biotechnology, and pharmaceuticals/ANDA.
- Ian A. Wright (Los Angeles) as partner in our Labor & Employment Group. He represents employers in federal and state courts throughout California and the U.S. in a variety of employment-related litigation; he handles trade secret disputes, complex wage-and-hour disputes, and claims of discrimination, harassment, retaliation, wrongful termination, and defamation, as well as other matters. He advocates for clients in all phases of litigation, including investigation, discovery, law and motion, alternative dispute resolution, trial, and appeal.