Alston & Bird Elects 27 New Partners | Press Release

Alston & Bird announces the election of 27 lawyers to its partnership, effective January 1, 2024. The new partners span six offices and 11 practice groups.

“Our new partners exemplify the firm’s values of integrity, collegiality, and excellent service,” said Alston & Bird Chairman and Managing Partner Richard Hays. “In addition to advising clients on their most challenging and sophisticated matters, they will lead our firm into an exciting new era and help develop our future generations of legal talent.”

Elected to Alston & Bird’s partnership are:

Robert Ardern (London) as partner in our Corporate & Business Transactions Group, where he advises public and private companies and financial sponsors across multiple sectors on a broad range of complex cross-border mergers and acquisitions, capital raising, joint ventures, carve-outs, restructurings, corporate governance, and other general corporate advisory matters.
Elizabeth Buckel (New York) as partner in our Litigation & Trial Practice Group. She concentrates her practice on complex commercial litigation, with a special focus on financial services, securities, and insurance litigation in state and federal courts. In addition, she represents corporations and individuals in internal investigations and investigations before state and federal regulatory agencies.
Nick Davis (Fort Worth) as partner in our Litigation & Trial Practice Group, where he represents clients in complex disputes, trials, and arbitrations. He has significant experience in high-stakes commercial cases and disputes related to oil and gas.
Michael Deane (Atlanta) as partner in our Intellectual Property Litigation Group, where he focuses his practice on all aspects of patents and patent litigation in district courts, the ITC, the PTAB, and the Federal Circuit. He has represented clients in matters related to a range of diverse technologies, including telecommunications, antenna design, and fiber optics.
Chad Fights (Charlotte) as partner in our Finance Group. His practice focuses on advising corporate trust service providers on a variety of capital markets transactions, with a focus on structured finance and other debt offerings. He represents corporate trust clients in CLOs, CDOs, CFOs, and other asset-backed securitizations along with secured and unsecured corporate debt issuances.
Tim Fitzmaurice (Atlanta) as partner in our Securities Litigation Group, where he concentrates his practice on defending public companies in securities class actions and M&A litigation. He also frequently defends individuals, private firms, and public companies in SEC investigations and enforcement proceedings.
Anna French (New York) as partner in our Finance Group. She represents public and private borrowers and issuers, sponsors, lenders (including investment banks and non-bank lenders), underwriters, placement agents, investors, participation sellers and buyers, rating agencies, and other industry participants. She has negotiated securitization transactions, warehouse lines of credit, participation arrangements, syndicated financing arrangements, and other types of structured and secured lending transactions across a broad spectrum of asset classes, including timeshare loans, unsecured personal loans, residential mortgage loans, mortgage servicing rights and servicing advances, to name a few.
Meredith Gage (Atlanta) as partner in our Employee Benefits & Executive Compensation Group. Her practice focuses on the design, implementation, and ongoing compliance of employee benefit plans, including issues that arise in mergers, acquisitions, and other business reorganizations. She also counsels clients on issues relating to pension investment and ERISA fiduciary matters.
John Gerl (Atlanta) as partner in our Financial Services & Products Group, where he focuses his practice on the representation of both public and private financial institutions, wealth management, and investment advisory firms in a range of transactional and regulatory matters, including mergers and acquisitions, debt and equity securities offerings, securities reporting, regulatory compliance, and general corporate governance.
Kerri-Ann Griggs (Atlanta) as partner in our Labor & Employment Group. She provides corporate clients with strategic solutions for their global workforce, international employment, cross-border transactions, and compliance. Kerri advises clients on various aspects of corporate immigration law, including compliance with I-9 and citizenship status discrimination laws, and employment-based and investor visa options.
William Hao (New York) as partner in our Financial Restructuring & Reorganization Group, where he advises lenders, funds, financial institutions, indenture trustees, acquirers of assets, and other parties-in-interest in distressed situations. William represents clients in all aspects of bankruptcy proceedings as well as in connection with finance and M&A transactions.
Andrew Hatchett (Atlanta) as partner in our Litigation & Trial Practice Group, where he represents clients in a wide range of complex commercial litigation with an emphasis on antitrust cases in the pharmaceutical and life sciences sectors. He also has an active appellate practice, having represented clients in appeals before the U.S. Supreme Court, the First, Second, Third, Sixth, Eighth, Ninth, and Eleventh Circuits, and various state appellate courts.
Samuel Jockel (Washington, D.C.) as partner in our Litigation & Trial Practice Group. Having previously served at both the FDA and USDA, Sam focuses his practice on regulatory, policy, and litigation matters involving the FDA, USDA, FTC, and state regulatory agencies related to food, beverages, cosmetics, dietary supplements, animal products, and drugs. He advises clients on a range of matters, including product commercialization, regulatory compliance, import and export, supply chain management, and labeling and advertising.
Jacob Johnson (Atlanta) as partner in our Financial Restructuring & Reorganization Group. In court, he handles domestic and cross-border cases under the Bankruptcy Code, receiverships (creditor, regulatory, and SEC), ABCs, and state-law liquidations. He also does complex domestic and cross-border insolvency-related litigation, focusing on complicated financial transactions. Outside court, Jacob negotiates out-of-court debt restructurings and business-separation agreements and counsels banks, large corporations, funds, and smaller companies in a variety of insolvency matters related to investment structures, corporate transactions, credit-risk mitigation, and financial services.
Matthew Johnson (Washington, D.C., New York) as partner in our Real Estate Group. Focusing his practice on commercial real estate finance, he represents investment banks, commercial banks, debt funds, and life insurance companies in the origination, securitization, syndication, and sale of commercial real estate loans. His experience extends to servicing, workout, restructuring, foreclosure, and working with master and special servicers. He also advises sellers and purchasers of whole loans, subordinate debt, and mezzanine loans.
Matthew Lawson (Atlanta) as partner in our Litigation & Trial Practice Group. He focuses his practice on commercial litigation matters including antitrust and class actions for companies in the manufacturing, health care, and pharmaceutical industries.
Andrew Liebler (Atlanta) as partner in our Litigation & Trial Practice Group, where he focuses his practice on health care, cybersecurity, government and internal investigations, qui tam litigation, and complex commercial litigation. He routinely represents clients in health care, insurance, and higher education industries in complex matters and defends them in investigations and enforcement actions brought by the Department of Justice, U.S. Attorney’s offices, and state and federal regulators.
Antone Little (Charlotte) as partner in our Finance Group. He represents corporate trustees in secured and unsecured financial transactions in their capacity as administrative agents, collateral agents, indenture trustees, paying agents, escrow agents, owner trustees, and a variety of other third-party service providers. These transactions include asset-backed securitizations (aviation and oil & gas), aircraft leasing, loan agency, project finance, and debt finance transactions. In addition, he has extensive experience representing lenders and other entities in purchasing, selling, leasing, and financing aircraft both domestically and internationally.
Bhanu Mathur (Washington, D.C.) as partner in our Corporate & Business Transactions Group. She focuses her practice on the representation of public companies in a variety of industries including hospitality, payments, automotive, and real estate investment trusts in mergers and acquisitions, SEC reporting and compliance, corporate governance, and capital raising transactions.
Tyler Pate (Atlanta) as partner in our Corporate Health Care Transactions Group, where he represents both public and private companies in a broad range of corporate matters, including mergers and acquisitions, corporate governance, securities offerings, joint ventures, restructurings and corporate finance transactions. With a focus on the health care sector, he has expertise advising clients on complex transactions throughout the health care industry, most notably physician services (both providers and investors), hospitals and health systems, medical device manufacturing, biologics, and health IT.
Alan Pryor (Atlanta) as partner in our Litigation & Trial Practice Group. He represents clients across multiple industries in complex commercial litigation and class action disputes, with a particular focus on the food, beverage, and alcohol space and insurance issues. He has represented clients in a wide variety of disputes before state and federal courts across the country, including class action defense, breach of contract, fraud, false advertising and unfair competition, business torts, and corporate governance.
Courtney Quirós (Atlanta) as partner in our Securities Litigation Group, where her practice focuses primarily on securities fraud class actions, shareholder derivative suits, corporate investigations, and other complex commercial litigation. She has defended health care, manufacturing, insurance, transportation, and financial services clients in federal courts throughout the country. She has also represented clients in internal investigations.
Daniel Rowe (Charlotte) as partner in our Corporate & Business Transactions Group. He advises public and private clients, including private equity investment firms and their portfolio companies, on mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, joint ventures, and general corporate matters.
Joanna Schorr (New York) as partner in our Litigation & Trial Practice Group, where she represents clients in federal and state courts throughout the country, as well as in arbitrations and in pre-litigation disputes. She has guided clients through disputes involving violation of federal and state laws, insurance and reinsurance coverage, bad faith, breach of contract, employment law, and financial services.
Chris Underwood (Atlanta) as partner in our Finance Group. He represents private credit funds, asset management firms, and commercial banks as agents and lenders in middle market cash-flow and asset-based credit facilities. He focuses his practice on complex domestic and international leveraged acquisitions, recapitalizations, restructurings, and growth and expansion credit facilities across a variety of industries, including technology, health care, franchise, restaurant, retail, and manufacturing.
Emily Welch (Atlanta) as partner in our Intellectual Property Litigation Group. She helps her clients by managing large, complex litigations implicating a wide range of intellectual property rights. She has litigated patents, trademarks, and trade dress cases across the country, including frequent litigation in the Western and Eastern Districts of Texas.
Seaira Wolf (Charlotte) as partner in our Real Estate Group, where she focuses her practice on commercial real estate finance and loan servicing. She represents lenders, financial institutions, and servicers in transactions involving commercial mortgage conduit, bridge, mezzanine, and construction loan originations. She also advises clients on master and special servicing matters, including equity transfers, loan assumptions, performing loan consents, workouts, and enforcement of remedies.