(January 5, 2011) - Reed Smith LLP today announced the election of 25 new partners firmwide, effective January 1, 2011. Of the newly elected partners, 14 are resident in the firm's U.S. offices, while 11 are spread throughout the firm's offices in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. Nine out of the 25 are transactional attorneys, while 16 are litigators.
"All of these highly capable women and men are representative of Reed Smith's commitment to exceptional client service, intellectual and legal integrity, and public service around the globe," said Gregory B. Jordan, Reed Smith's Global Managing Partner. "We welcome them as partners and look forward with optimism to their future contributions to our firm and the greater legal and business community."
By office, Reed Smith's newly elected partners are:
CENTURY CITY
Ramsey Hanna is a member of the Corporate & Securities practice, where he serves as team leader for Reed Smith's Emerging Growth/Venture Capital team in Southern California. Ramsey's practice focuses on advising early stage and venture-backed companies and other businesses on corporate and commercial matters, including mergers and acquisitions, private and public securities offerings, corporate governance matters, and SEC compliance. He also represents clients in intellectual property and commercial transactions, such as technology licensing and transfer agreements and strategic partnership transactions. Over the years, Ramsey has represented strategic investors and venture capital funds in several key investment transactions.
CHICAGO
Michael M. Geoffrey is a member of the firm's Intellectual Property group, in which he manages the firm's Chicago patent prosecution and counseling practice. His practice covers IP litigation, complex transactions, and counseling, and he has extensive experience as both in-house and outside counsel in all aspects of IP. He has represented clients with respect to joint ventures, acquisitions and complex licensing transactions. Michael routinely counsels clients on IP matters and their impact on the clients' business. His litigation experience includes patent, trademark and copyright infringement, trade secret misappropriation, and computer fraud.
DUBAI
Chau Ee Lee is a new partner in the firm's global Real Estate practice. A Dubai-based construction lawyer, Chau Ee focuses on contentious and non-contentious construction and engineering projects in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, People's Republic of China, Taiwan, Oman, UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Egypt and the UK, covering virtually every construction sector, with a particular emphasis on energy and infrastructure. Over the past two years, he has advised UAE government entities, Middle Eastern master developers and major global contractors on project delivery from conception to completion, including the operational and maintenance phases of the project life-cycle. He has also acted for these clients in dispute avoidance processes, such as adjudication, and the dispute resolution processes, including arbitrations involving multi-million-dollar claims and counterclaims.
HONG KONG
Peter Lee is a new partner in the firm's Hong Kong Finance practice, where his primary experience is in non-contentious shipping transactions, and in representing ship-owners (particularly Chinese) in the sale and purchase and financing of second-hand tonnage and new buildings, as well as advising ship owners, builders and banks on shipbuilding contracts and refund guarantees. Peter also has experience in other syndicated secured and unsecured lending and asset financing transactions, acting for banks and financial institutions, borrowers, project companies and investors in Hong Kong, mainland China and throughout Asia. Since 2003, Peter has handled the sale and purchase of more than 100 ships and has been acting for one of the biggest shipping conglomerates in China in its financing of more than 40 ships for the aggregate loan amount of approximately $3 billion (U.S.), as well as in its container leasing and container terminal projects. Peter is also currently advising one of the biggest oil producers in China in its ship-building project.
Ronald Lee is a new partner in the firm's Litigation & Dispute Resolution practice. A qualified solicitor in Hong Kong since 2003, his areas of practice include international trade, shipping, insurance, personal injury actions and employment-related matters. He also has extensive experience in shipping-related disputes and has handled a number of arbitrations in respect of disputes arising from commodities, MOA and shipbuilding contracts in different jurisdictions, including Hong Kong, London and the PRC. Ronald is fluent in English, Mandarin and Cantonese.
Desmond Yu is a partner in the firm's Global Regulatory Enforcement group, with extensive experience in complex corporate/commercial/regulatory dispute resolution and litigation. Desmond focuses on contentious financial services and securities regulatory matters, including compliance matters, confidential investigations, disciplinary proceedings, insider dealing and market misconduct public inquiries, and financial services and securities-related criminal matters. Desmond represents investment banks, fund managers, international and Asian corporations, PRC state-owned enterprises, and high net-worth individuals.
LONDON
Marcus Dodds is new partner in the firm's Shipping practice, where he specializes in shipping and off-shore matters. Marcus manages both a contentious and non-contentious workload, covering all aspects of a traditional marine practice but with a particular emphasis on LNG, off-shore assets and support vessels, including charters, service, management and terminal use agreements. As a former ship's master, Marcus benefits from a technical appreciation of the subject matter, and he has similarly broad practical seagoing experience, including on gas carriers, mooring handlers, break bulk, reefer and container ships.
William Howard is a litigation lawyer and new partner in the Shipping practice who deals with a range of shipping-related matters principally before the High Court and in London-based arbitration. William has extensive experience in charterparty, bill of lading and ship/yacht construction disputes. He additionally undertakes a significant amount of drafting and pre-contract advisory work for a broad network of clients, who are based predominately in Europe and Japan.
Panos Katsambas is a new partner in the firm's Financial Industry Group who represents clients with respect to investments in hedge funds and other private investment vehicles, advising on both transactional and contentious aspects. Panos has substantial experience in securities, antitrust, and complex commercial litigation matters. In addition, Panos acts often on behalf of Greek clients that have international business dealings and on behalf of foreign clients investing in Greece. Panos transferred from the firm's New York office to London in 2009 and has since been at the forefront of cases involving billions of dollars.
Rosanne Kay is a commercial litigator and new partner in the European / Middle East Commercial Disputes practice group who specializes in global regulatory enforcement and financial services disputes, as well as in other general commercial disputes. She has spent 12 months on secondment in the Enforcement Division of the FSA, and she regularly works with her U.S. colleagues in relation to FCPA, OFAC and other regulatory investigations, leveraging her fluency in both French and Spanish.
LOS ANGELES
Pavel Ekmekchyan is a member of the Western Commercial Litigation practice, which he joined fresh out of law school in 2002. His practice focuses on general commercial litigation with an emphasis on representing the world's major banking institutions and international finance conglomerates, with one of which he just completed a year-long secondment. Pavel was the Los Angeles Associate Committee representative for three years, and he served on the Summer Associate Recruiting Committee for several years in various roles. Pavel has also been a very positive representative for the firm at different UCLA-related functions (both undergraduate and law school), and in the Annual Hope for Firefighters events/competition with other firm employees.
Princeton H. Kim is a member of the Labor & Employment group, in which he defends a variety of clients, including small companies and Fortune 100 multinational corporations, in both individual plaintiff and class action employment litigation matters. Princeton also advises clients on a range of employment issues and represents employers in connection with investigations and audits by governmental agencies. Princeton has chaired and assisted with several trials in both state and federal courts, as well as in arbitration and governmental proceedings. He is the co-chair of the Labor and Employment Committee of the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association, the incoming president for the Korean American Bar Association of Southern California, and a member of the Judicial Profiles Committee for the Los Angeles County Bar Association. For the past three years, Los Angeles Lawyer Magazine and Law and Politics has named Princeton a rising star in labor and employment law.
MUNICH
Jan Weißgerber is responsible for the Employment practice in the Munich office. He specializes in contentious and non-contentious individual and collective employment law. Jan regularly counsels international clients with day-to-day employment issues, including hiring, dismissals, fixed-term employments, discrimination, secondments and company pension schemes. Jan also drafts employment policies, employee handbooks, individual employment and managing director services agreements, termination agreements and non-compete covenants. He has broad experience of the employment aspects of business transfers and regularly provides advice on restructuring situations. Jan has also litigated numerous claims for wrongful termination in both single plaintiff and class action matters. In addition, Jan has handled collective employment matters such as drafting, negotiating and implementing of works agreements and conducts on-site training sessions on any employment topics.
NEW YORK
Thomas G. Maira is a deputy chair of the firm's Private Equity practice group, where he focuses on major Commercial Real Estate-related matters, including closing joint ventures, acquisitions, and financings for several billions of dollars in real estate portfolios and platforms in all major asset classes and mezzanine lending activities. He also handles restructuring and workouts, distressed acquisitions and sales of real estate portfolios and operating companies, and general commercial real estate finance, acquisition, disposition, development, leasing and asset management matters.
Patrick F. Rice is a deputy chair of the firm's Private Equity practice group, where he focuses on Corporate & Securities, with an emphasis in advising on large-scale mergers and acquisitions, divestitures, corporate finance and general corporate matters. Patrick also counsels issuers and investment banks in public and private securities offerings, and handles general corporate and securities matters, such as securities law compliance, corporate governance issues, joint ventures, disclosure issues, stock repurchase programs, shareholder agreements, proxy contests, shareholder rights plans, and other corporate control matters. Prior to joining Reed Smith, Patrick was a vice president and assistant general counsel at Goldman Sachs & Co., where he served as general counsel of several private equity investment funds, including Goldman Sachs Infrastructure Partners, the Whitehall Street Real Estate Funds, and a variety of other funds within Goldman Sachs' Merchant Bank.
PARIS
Sophie Borenstein is a member of the firm's Tax Benefits & Wealth Planning practice group, specializing in French and international taxation, transfer pricing, corporate tax, real estate taxation, tax issues for cross-border mergers and acquisitions, and group reorganization and restructuring. Sophie advises clients in a broad spectrum of industries, such as media and advertising, IT/software, real estate and property dealers, life sciences and health care, shipping companies and private banking. With more than 13 years' experience, she also has a strong understanding of many other tax systems (including UK, U.S., Swiss, Luxembourg and Saudi Arabia), which enables her to handle cross-border tax issues as they arise. She is also the official French correspondent for Tax Analysts, Tax Notes International and Worldwide Tax Daily.
PHILADELPHIA
Shannon E. McClure is a member of the firm's Eastern Commercial Litigation group, where she represents diverse businesses across many industries, including banking, transportation, payment solutions companies, retail telecommunications, and food manufacturing. Shannon's areas of experience include complex commercial litigation, antitrust, and labor and employment litigation. She is particularly skilled in the area of e-discovery, and is able to communicate highly technical matters and "translate" the technical terminology between clients and firm colleagues. Outside of the firm, Shannon serves as a Board Member for the Philadelphia Theatre Company and the Philadelphia Chapter of the William & Mary Alumni Society. Shannon was named in 2010 as a "Pennsylvania Rising Star" by Super Lawyers magazine.
PIRAEUS
Dr. George Panagopoulos is a new partner in the Shipping practice. Based in the firm's office in Greece, George is an experienced shipping and litigation lawyer admitted in Australia, England and Greece, with extensive experience in all three jurisdictions. He deals with all aspects of shipping and commercial litigation, including cargo claims, charterparty disputes, ship sale and purchase, shipbuilding, sale of goods and arbitration. With an emphasis on the commercial aspects of the shipping industry, George also increasingly advises clients on non-contentious shipping and commercial transactions.
PITTSBURGH
Jayme L. Butcher is a member of the firm's Eastern Commercial Litigation group. Her practice areas include non-compete, trade secret and restrictive covenant litigation, FINRA arbitrations, gas explosion cases, lender liability actions and general commercial litigation. Jayme has served as an Associates' Committee representative for the past four years and was in charge of the Summer Associate program this year in the Pittsburgh office. Jayme is also actively involved in the community as a member of Hearth, a nonprofit organization that assists single mothers with affordable housing.
Andrew J. Muha is a member of the Insurance Recovery group, where he focuses on representing policyholders in disputes and litigation over coverage under various types of liability insurance policies. Andy has extensive experience representing debtors in asbestos-related bankruptcy cases, assisting those clients in seeking insurance recoveries to fund their plans of reorganization, as well as in negotiating and litigating confirmation of those debtors' plans of reorganization. He also provides general litigation counsel to a variety of commercial clients, ranging from large financial institutions and media companies to small manufacturers, and has significant trial experience in federal bankruptcy and district courts. Andy serves on several of the firm's internal management committees and is a mentor to junior attorneys. Andy is also a member of the Board of Directors of the McGuire Memorial Foundation of New Brighton, Pennsylvania.
PRINCETON
Paul Bond is a leader in Reed Smith's rapidly expanding Data Privacy, Security & Management group. Based in Princeton, New Jersey, Paul was one of the initial attorneys to establish this practice, which now encompasses more than three dozen attorneys around the world. As a lead U.S. attorney in data security compliance, Paul has helped the firm's clients comply with legal requirements for the protection of personal data, whether those requirements arise from contract, state, national, or international law. When data is lost, stolen, or subject to unauthorized access, Paul has counseled a broad swath of clients in more than 200 data security breach situations. Paul has helped defend more than 60 such privacy-related class actions. In 2010, for the first time, The Legal 500 United States identified Reed Smith as having one of the nation's elite practices in data protection and privacy, naming Paul as one of the group's three leading attorneys.
RICHMOND
Travis A. Sabalewski is the newest partner in the Eastern Commercial Litigation group in the firm's Richmond, Virginia, office, where he focuses on financial services litigation. Travis has successfully defended firm clients in more than 75 individual consumer finance cases, in addition to a wide variety of other commercial litigation, such as a major gas transmission client in its frequent easement disputes. He has been named a Super Lawyer Rising Star in Virginia each year since 2008, and, in 2010, was named to the Virginia Business Legal Elite in the under-40 category. Travis serves as the Richmond office Pro Bono Coordinator. Outside the firm, Travis serves as Board member for the Association for the Support of Children with Cancer, is outreach chair for his church Council, and is on the Board for the Richmond Chapter of the Federal Bar Association.
SAN FRANCISCO
Michael L. Eden is a member of the firm's Corporate & Securities practice, where he focuses on representing equipment manufacturers and developers, contractors and operators involved in energy projects. Michael has worked closely with one of the world's largest manufacturers of wind turbines for more than six years and is one of the key attorneys in the firm's relationship with this client. In 2010, Michael led a transaction for the sale of approximately $2 billion in wind turbines for projects in multiple countries over the course of several years. This transaction is the largest single transaction for the sale of wind turbines to date between non-affiliated entities. Prior to 2010, Michael managed several other significant transactions for wind power projects in both the United States and Canada. Michael also serves a valuable role in training and mentoring newer members of the wind energy team and has been involved in practice development activities for the broader renewable energy group.
Meghan Landrum is a member of the Western Commercial Litigation group, where she focuses on e-discovery analysis and technology, complex commercial litigation and pharmaceutical product liability litigation. A key member of the firm's core e-discovery team, Meghan is an e-discovery analysis and technology specialist, who has led a number of discovery and document teams in complex litigation matters. Meghan regularly counsels clients on a full spectrum of e-discovery issues, including litigation readiness, preservation, collection, review and production of electronic documents. She is well-versed in the emerging technologies used to manage large scale e-discovery projects and has designed and led multiple complex discovery and document review teams in the analysis of potentially responsive data. Meghan also regularly counsels clients on the identification and protection of potentially privileged and confidential proprietary information. For example, she worked closely with a key pharmaceutical client on the development of its new legal research initiative: the Legal Research Repository, which is a Six Sigma Solution to centralize legal data and reduce the unnecessary duplication of research. Meghan also has an active pro bono practice, in which she represents clients on issues of civil rights, nonprofit taxes and administration, and children's asylum law.
David S. Reidy is a member of the Financial Industry Group, where he represents banks and other financial institutions in class and individual actions related to fair lending, debt collection and credit reporting, as well as unfair business practices and securities law. David leads a mortgage litigation team for one of the firm's leading banking clients that includes more than 20 associates and spans numerous offices in the firm. He has obtained dismissals of hundreds of cases for Reed Smith's financial services clients, and has tried cases to verdict in federal and state court as well. David is an active member of the Bar Association of San Francisco (BASF), and, in 2011, he will serve as Treasurer of the BASF Barristers Club and as a member of the BASF Board, in addition to serving on the BASF Finance Committee. David also is actively involved in the United Way of the Bay Area and serves on Reed Smith's United Way Fundraising Committee.
About Reed Smith
Reed Smith is a global relationship law firm with nearly 1,600 lawyers in 22 offices throughout the United States, Europe, Asia and the Middle East. Founded in 1877, the firm represents leading international businesses, from Fortune 100 corporations to mid-market and emerging enterprises. Its lawyers provide litigation and other dispute resolution services in multi-jurisdictional and other high-stakes matters; deliver regulatory counsel; and execute the full range of strategic domestic and cross-border transactions. Reed Smith is a preeminent advisor to industries including financial services, life sciences, health care, advertising, technology and media, shipping, energy trade and commodities, real estate, manufacturing, and education. For more information, visit reedsmith.com.
U.S.: New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Washington, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Oakland, Princeton, Northern Virginia, Wilmington, Silicon Valley, Century City, Richmond
Europe: London, Paris, Munich, Greece
Middle East: Abu Dhabi, Dubai
Asia: Hong Kong, Beijing