Kutak Rock LLP has elected 23 new partners from its attorney ranks. The promotions became effective on January 1, 2017.

“This year’s class of new partners is yet another incredibly diverse class in the history of the firm,” remarks David Jacobson, chair of the firm. “More than half of this year’s elected partners are women and more than 15% self-identify as part of a minority group. The makeup of this year’s class is a clear demonstration of our founders’ commitment to an inclusive work environment.”

A pioneer in recruiting women, Kutak Rock received national recognition for its number of women partners in the 1970s and 80s. The firm’s history of hiring and advancing women attorneys has continued through the years. In 2015 The AmLaw Daily recognized Kutak Rock as one of only three AmLaw 200 firms whose new partners classes were at least 30% female in eight of the previous nine years (no AmLaw 200 firm achieved a 30% rate for all nine years). During the past decade, three of Kutak Rock’s partner classes were made up of more than 50% women, three were made up of 40-49% women, and three were made up of 30-39% women.

Kim McKelvey, Director of Strategic Focus and Director of Diversity for the firm, notes, “A diverse class of new partners is the direct result of a long-term focus on attracting, recruiting, developing and advancing talented attorneys. When a firm invests in its talent, it is rewarded with a culture of inclusiveness and a deep sense of loyalty.”

That loyalty is evident by the size of the new class. “We have promoted a very large class to the partnership again this year,” Jacobson notes. “During the past 10 years we have promoted more than 200 attorneys to the partnership, which is significantly higher than most other firms our size. It speaks volumes about the health of our law firm, and our ability to provide creative, quality solutions to our clients’ business needs.

“Our new partners have demonstrated the qualities that have earned them widespread recognition within the firm and we are proud to welcome them to the firm’s partnership,” Jacobson states.

Atlanta

Leslie Powell represents domestic and foreign financial institutions in lending transactions with a focus on public finance. Her practice includes the representation of lenders in connection with credit or liquidity support for publicly traded debt securities, the direct purchase of bonds and other debt securities and other forms of direct lending. She also represents banks in a variety of structured investment transactions involving financial products such as forward delivery agreements, repurchase agreements and investment agreements.

Chicago

Debbi Boye has served as bond counsel, underwriters' counsel and counsel to banks providing credit enhancement on a wide variety of public finance transactions throughout the United States. She focuses on the issuance of private activity bonds, including exempt facility financings of solid waste disposal facilities, facilities for the furnishing of water and facilities for the local furnishing of electric energy and gas, industrial development revenue bond financings and financings for investor-owned, municipally owned and cooperative utilities.

Denver

Ryan Jardine engages in a broad spectrum of finance-related transactions including transportation-related financing, student loan securitizations, health care financings, and financings for public and private higher education institutions, nonprofit and charitable entities, and municipalities. His experience includes serving as bond counsel, disclosure counsel and underwriter's counsel.

Penfield Tate III’s public finance and municipal law experience includes representing public entities, lenders and underwriters engaged in the process of financing essential public improvements, and advising local and state governments in the exercise of their administrative responsibilities. He formerly served in both the Colorado Senate and House of Representatives and as executive director of the Department of Administration for former Governor Roy Romer, as well as on both the State of Colorado Banking Board and the Colorado Housing and Finance Authority.

Fayetteville

Dale Brown’s commercial law practice is focused on delivering favorable outcomes and solutions to his clients. His significant jury trial experience provides real value to clients in litigated matters as well as for clients addressing business matters in an effort to minimize the risk of litigation. Some of Mr. Brown’s clients include financial institutions, medical providers in medical malpractice matters, commercial contractors, and Fortune 100 companies in tort and commercial matters. He also represents landowners pertaining to land use, zoning, and other governmental regulation and frequently counsels business clients of all sizes concerning everyday business issues.

Samantha Leflar represents corporate clients in commercial, employment, professional negligence, and class action disputes. She has defended individual and class action lawsuits involving contracts, deceptive trade practices, regulatory and statutory violations, intentional torts, negligence, and default judgments. In addition, Ms. Leflar has significant appellate law experience. Her appellate practice encompasses crafting legal arguments at the trial court level, consulting on trial strategy, assisting with post-trial motions, advising clients on the likelihood of success on appeal, and drafting appeal briefs, motions and petitions.

Little Rock

Ashley Welch Hudson represents corporate clients and management professionals in commercial and employment disputes. She has defended claims of discrimination, harassment and retaliation and has worked with corporate clients on breach of contract, fraud, negligence, breach of covenants not to compete, theft of trade secrets, and tortious interference claims. She also assists health care clients in a variety of litigated claims, in addition to investigating corporate compliance matters for health care facilities, challenging adverse Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement claims, and assisting with state licensure appeals.

Teresa Wineland practices in the areas of commercial, complex, class action, insurance and general litigation. Her cases have covered a wide range of subject areas, including contract, fraud, deceptive trade practices, trade secrets, products liability, insurance coverage, and personal injury. She also has handled numerous non-jury trials, mediations, appeals, and large-scale eDiscovery projects. She has obtained numerous defense verdicts, summary judgments, dismissals and favorable settlements for her clients.

Omaha

Michaelle Baumert concentrates her practice on employment law, class action, franchise vicarious liability, and traditional labor. She regularly counsels employers on complicated human resources issues in all areas of employment law, including discrimination/harassment, wage and hour, disability leave management, reductions in force policy drafting, employment contracts and severance agreements, and workplace investigations. Ms. Baumert also maintains a strong litigation and trial practice and has successfully defended employers through summary judgment, bench and jury trials, and appellate work in individual and class and collective actions.

Daniel Bruce's practice centers on trademarks and focuses on counseling clients how best to develop, maintain and protect their intellectual property and compete effectively while deliberately managing risk. He regularly gives trademark use and registrability opinions, sees trademarks through to federal registration, and compels third parties not to infringe clients’ marks. He also drafts and negotiates agreements that grant rights to use or own trademarks and other intellectual property, and that allocate legal and business risks.

Sean Connolly is a registered patent attorney and provides a variety of intellectual property services, with an emphasis on technology transactions including software, hardware and cloud hosting agreements, patent prosecution before the United States Patent and Trademark Office, litigation, licensing and due diligence. He also provides product clearance services including non-infringement and invalidity opinions, and consulting regarding patent design-arounds. His experience includes computer software and hardware, pharmaceuticals, petroleum production, materials science, and various consumer products.

Edward Fox, II focuses on white-collar criminal defense, government or regulatory disputes and investigations, parallel proceedings, corporate internal investigations, and procurement disputes and bid protests at the state and federal levels. He has experience in matters alleging violations of state and federal antitrust laws, criminal and civil fraud, health care fraud, violations of securities laws, and the False Claims Act. His experience also includes criminal, civil and regulatory matters brought by federal and state regulatory and administrative entities.

Scott Going focuses his practice on new markets, low-income, historic rehabilitation and renewable energy tax credits as well as other related state and federal financing products. He has experience representing institutional lenders, banks, syndicators, investment funds, corporations and housing agencies in the acquisition, disposition and financing of a variety of properties. In addition, he has served as workout counsel for financial institutions and has been involved in the restructuring and recapitalization of several distressed tax credit properties.

Brooke H. McCarthy represents clients in a wide variety of complex commercial litigation matters. She focuses on disputes involving insurance coverage and defense, employment law, and intellectual property. Her national insurance practice encompasses an extensive range of coverage disputes and issues, and her commercial litigation practice focuses on representing businesses in matters involving breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duty, and indemnity-related disputes.

Cara Nesbitt focuses on low-income housing tax credit and historic rehabilitation tax credit transactions and has experience representing large institutional investors with equity investments for the procurement, development and financing of affordable housing sites. She assists with equity investments in lower-tier transactions and the syndication of transactions into upper-tier funds. Her involvement includes drafting and negotiating equity documents for projects with multiple layers of financing, tax credits and rental assistance.

G. Andrew Page primarily acts as bond counsel and special tax counsel to municipal issuers, as well as underwriters’ counsel in connection with the issuance of municipal bonds. He has extensive experience in single-family housing and state and local government finance, and acts as counsel to state housing finance agencies in connection with issuances of mortgage revenue bonds. He also advises state housing finance agencies with respect to their mortgage lending programs including compliance with various consumer finance regulations.

Philadelphia

Peter Kessler has extensive experience litigating a variety of complex business issues. His engagements have included the successful resolution of commercial disputes, fraud claims, partnership disputes, securities class actions, and SEC/FINRA matters. He has represented banks, large businesses, small businesses, hedge funds, developers, broker-dealers and private individuals through all stages of litigation, including successful trial and appeal.

Rogers

G. Nick Arnold focused primarily on banking and commercial lending, real estate acquisition and conveyance, contracts and commercial transactions. He provides a wide range of representation for his banking clients including the perfecting and enforcing of real estate and personal property security interests, loan transactions, compliance with laws and regulations concerning emerging privacy issues, as well as operational matters. He has assisted various financial institutions in reviewing, drafting and negotiating loan and security documents.

Scottsdale

Kelly McGuire focuses exclusively on public financing that typically involves transactions utilizing conduit issuers. She serves as bond counsel, issuer’s counsel, underwriter’s counsel, disclosure counsel and purchaser’s counsel in tax-exempt and taxable financing transactions throughout the country. She has extensive experience in the issuance of multifamily housing revenue bonds (including 4% LIHTC) and charter school financing transactions, and also has served as bond counsel in waste-to-energy and off-balance-sheet student housing transactions.

Kelley Sucher’s commercial litigation practice focuses primarily on creditors’ rights, real estate, and contract-related disputes. She represents lenders in actions for deficiencies and other real estate-related claims, bankruptcy cases, fraudulent transfer claims and other proceedings. She has counseled financial institutions in bankruptcy and state court proceedings with enforcement of security interests in equipment and other types of personal property; and defended public and private entities against claims for breach of commercial leases, and against claims arising from the sale of a business.

Allison Hirohata Swenson’s practice consists primarily of commercial real estate development, including acquisitions, leasing dispositions, financing and property management matters. She also represents commercial lenders in drafting and negotiating documents, due diligence and title and survey reviews, and has experience in planning for real estate transactions such as structuring and forming corporations, limited liability companies and partnerships. Additionally, she has considerable experience in restructurings and workouts for borrowers, lenders and landlords, and has handled non-judicial foreclosures.

Washington, D.C.

Deborah Froling has extensive experience in public and private offerings of debt, equity and convertible securities as both issuer's and underwriter's counsel primarily for real estate companies. She has closed public and private debt and equity offerings, primarily for REITs and other real estate companies, as well as non-traded equipment finance and oil and gas companies, and business development companies. She has structured and closed numerous tenant in common syndications and has worked with public and private company clients providing general corporate counseling on periodic and annual reporting and other SEC disclosure requirements.

Nicole Moriarty practices primarily in the area of complex commercial litigation and general civil litigation. Her experience extends to a variety of matters including financial services litigation, antitrust litigation and HSR filings, government contracts litigation and compliance, bankruptcy and creditors’ rights litigation and general contract disputes. Ms. Moriarty also has experience assisting with the structuring, financing and implementation of public-private partnerships.