Benesch Names 20 New Partners for 2023

“These attorneys have demonstrated outstanding leadership and commitment to our clients during their tenure with the firm,” said Gregg Eisenberg, Managing Partner of Benesch Law. “They have made remarkable contributions to our growth and remain committed to our long-standing culture of client service. We are excited to welcome them to the partnership and look forward to their continuing contributions to Benesch’s success.”

LeAnn Davis | Real Estate & Environmental

LeAnn is a practical and experienced commercial real estate attorney, assisting developers, lenders, corporations, and investors in all phases and types of complex real estate transactions. Licensed in Ohio and Florida, LeAnn has a special interest in commercial asset redevelopment, joint ventures, conservation and environmental credit projects, legal opinion practice, and in resolving difficult title issues.  LeAnn’s graduate education and prior experience as in-house counsel for public corporations and a regional non-profit conservation organization sharpened her skills in operational strategy, management, and critical problem-solving, all of which allow her to provide efficient and pragmatic counsel for her clients at Benesch. 

Alison Evans | Intellectual Property

Alison’s practice focuses on counseling clients in a variety of industries in the negotiation and execution of complex, high-value, IP and technology transactions matters, including inbound and outbound IP, IT and technology procurement, licenses, technology transfers, and business process outsourcing matters across a variety of technologies. She regularly advises clients on data security and privacy matters, including compliance with U.S. and international privacy laws and regulations, such as GDPR, CCPA, FTC Act, Gramm Leach Bliley, and others, responding to data security incidents, and drafting website and mobile application privacy policies and terms of use.

Julie Fenstermaker | Intellectual Property

Julie focuses her IP practice on trademark and copyright matters, including all aspects of domestic and international trademark prosecution, copyright registration, IP enforcement, licensing, and transactional matters. Julie regularly counsels clients on the selection, clearance and adoption of trademarks, the preparation of copyright and trademark applications, the prosecution of those applications through to registration, and post-registration maintenance.  Her practice includes strategically advising clients on the protection and enforcement of their IP worldwide, pre-litigation strategies, marketing and advertising matters related to trademark usage, and handling various IP aspects of corporate transactions.

Gregory Frohman | Litigation

Greg has represented institutional and individual clients in a wide range of complex commercial litigation. His practice includes prosecuting and defending contract and real estate disputes, business torts, director and officer liability, trade secret misappropriation, statutory liability, insurance coverage, and consumer sales practices and warranty claims. Greg has managed all aspects of commercial litigation in both state and federal courts and various arbitration forums, including pre-trial evaluation, traditional discovery, e-discovery, mediation, trial, and appeal. His experience and diligence allow him to identify key themes and anticipate potential issues early in the litigation process.

Mitchell Gecht | Corporate & Securities

Mitch represents private equity firms and their portfolio companies, emerging growth companies, public companies, and other clients in U.S. and cross-border transactions. Mitch has experience leading mergers and acquisitions, equity and debt financings, and other strategic transactions in a variety of industries, including manufacturing, clean energy, professional services, and consumer goods. He also advises clients on day-to-day corporate law and strategic matters.

Kate Harmon | Litigation

Kate helps her clients efficiently identify and execute on innovative solutions to business disputes and questions. Creative collaboration with her client teams and Benesch team is her favorite part of her practice. Kate focuses her practice on commercial litigation across industries in Delaware’s state and federal courts as well as in courts throughout various other jurisdictions. Kate also has experience in bankruptcy litigation, corporate litigation, corporate governance, entity formation, non-profit representation, insurance coverage disputes, and intellectual property matters.

Zachary Jacob | Healthcare

Zachary focuses his practice on mergers and acquisitions in the health care space. His experience includes serving as first and second chair transaction counsel in a variety of acquisitions, divestitures, affiliations, and joint ventures involving hospitals, physician groups, DSOs, dialysis centers, long-term care facilities, urgent care centers, GPOs and other health care providers and their affiliates. At each stage of a given transaction, Zach serves as a strategic partner to clients, evaluating deal structures, identifying risks and regulatory issues, and negotiating definitive documents.

Yelena Katz | Labor & Employment

Yelena works with employers on a variety of federal and state labor and employment matters, including issues arising under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, as well as other federal and state employment-related laws. She has experience representing clients in collective and class action wage and hour cases as well as in noncompetition and trade secret rights enforcement litigation in state and federal courts. Yelena's practice also includes counseling companies on day-to-day personnel issues and challenges. Moreover, Yelena is often asked to advise businesses regarding issues relating to acquisitions and divestitures.

Laura Kogan | Litigation

Laura litigates commercial disputes for public and private companies. Laura is committed to advocacy designed to achieve each clients’ business goals—whether inside or outside the courtroom. Laura has experience in all aspects of discovery and trial preparation, evidentiary and privilege issues, briefing and motion practice, and appellate practice. She has extensive experience in writing persuasively for tribunals, arbitrators, and mediators. Laura has devoted a significant portion of her practice to representing clients facing federal and state consumer-related litigation, including the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, and Fair Credit Reporting Act.

Matthew Langley | Litigation

Matthew is an experienced trial lawyer who focuses his practice on class actions, white collar and government investigations, affirmative recovery, and other complex civil litigation. He has experience in high-stakes, multimillion dollar class action suits as well as in representing sophisticated business clients in complex business litigation and government investigations.  Matthew has successfully first-chaired almost a dozen jury trials and arbitrations to verdict.  He is a former federal prosecutor in the Southern District of Florida and is a member of the state bar in New York, Florida, California, and Illinois.

Johanes Maliza | Litigation

Johanes’ practice includes complex commercial litigation, white-collar defense, and internal corporate investigations. To each body of law, he brings extensive writing and courtroom experience, a demonstrated track record of success, and a focus on efficient client service with results. With over twelve years of experience and being a member of the Illinois and Ohio bars, Johanes’ deep and broad experience provides calm to clients in turbulent waters. In commercial litigation, Johanes has experience in all phases of litigation in state and federal courts – from pre-pleading counsel to discovery, motions practice, post-trial briefing, and appeals.

Jacob Marshall | Litigation

Parties dealing with bankruptcy, workout, and financing matters rely on Jacob to provide clear, thoughtful advice that connects their rights under loan documents and insolvency laws to their business goals. By combining deep experience in middle-market financing with his knowledge of workout situations, Jacob helps both lenders and borrowers navigate distressed situations (and mitigate the risk of downside situations during the initial financing process). He has extensive experience representing clients across industries in bridge and distressed financing, bankruptcy, and other workout situations. That experience includes leading clients through chapter 11 and 7 bankruptcies, real estate and UCC foreclosure actions, assignments for the benefit of creditors, and distressed debt sales. In non-distressed situations, Jacob has helped clients efficiently close debt deals across the entire middle-market and throughout the capital stack, including leading teams documenting preferred equity investments, asset-based revolving loans, real estate and construction loans, and a variety of intercreditor arrangements.

Christopher Matgouranis | Real Estate & Environmental

Chris focuses his real estate practice on development, redevelopment, financings, investments, acquisitions, and dispositions of all types of multifamily residential, office, retail, hotel, mixed use and industrial properties in both single-asset transactions and multi-property portfolio transactions. He regularly represents developers, investors, lenders, private equity funds, and other institutional and non-institutional investors, and owners of commercial real estate. He has counseled clients on all aspects of debt and equity in real estate transactions, including construction financing, permanent financing, mezzanine financing transactions, workouts, complex joint ventures, and partnership matters.

Lee Muench | Litigation

A skilled and passionate litigator, Lee focuses his practice on complex commercial litigation and internal investigations. His matters include high stakes claims for breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duties and defamation. Lee has also extensive class action and product liability experience. Through his practice, Lee has represented a wide range of financial institutions, public companies, closely held corporations and individuals.

Kelly Noll | Real Estate & Environmental

Kelly focuses her practice on representing Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs), institutional investors, private equity funds, developers and owners of commercial real estate on a broad range of commercial real estate matters, including acquisitions and dispositions of commercial properties; mortgage and mezzanine financing; entity planning; redevelopment of commercial assets; and leasing of retail and office properties.

Simeon Papacostas | Intellectual Property

Simeon is an intellectual property attorney with substantial litigation experience in federal courts. Simeon primarily focuses his practice on patent litigation in federal courts and post-grant proceedings before the patent office. Simeon has argued matters in federal district court and before the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, and has represented clients in bench and jury trials as well as arbitrations in federal courts. He has represented clients across a wide range of industries, including medical devices, pharmaceuticals & biotechnology, electronics and lighting, autonomous control systems, drilling and oilfield services, as well as computer hardware and software, consumer products, and video games.

Reed Sirak | Real Estate & Environmental

Reed manages a broad range of transactional, compliance and litigation-based environmental matters at Benesch. Reed’s interdisciplinary approach to environmental law allows him to work effectively with Benesch’s Corporate, Construction, Energy, Litigation, Polymers, Regulated Industries, and Transportation practice groups to solve complex environmental issues on behalf of some of the firm’s largest clients. He is also well versed in counseling clients in the areas of HAZMAT transportation and regulatory enforcement matters.

Corey Sparks | Corporate & Securities

Corey is a seasoned transactional attorney with the negotiation and project-management skills that dealmakers require. Corey has helped close domestic and international transactions for publicly and privately held companies at various stages of growth, as well as private equity funds and their portfolio companies. His experience and attention to detail allow him to anticipate issues early in negotiations, ensuring that closings proceed smoothly and on-schedule. When he’s not closing deals, Corey supports business operators in day-to-day corporate matters, including business integration, commercial contracts, securityholder agreements and securities compliance.

Deana Stein | Litigation

Deana maintains a broad practice that includes litigating and arbitrating commercial landlord-tenant, business dissolution, insurance/reinsurance, labor and employment, anti-trust, and workers’ compensation related disputes. Deana has experience representing third party logistics companies, transportation brokers, and commercial shippers in connection with litigation arising out of shipment of goods nationally and internationally, as well as contractual disputes among carriers, brokers, and agents. On the products liability side, Deana’s practice includes defending a manufacturer of off-road vehicles against claims that the product was defectively designed and manufactured, as well as resolving contract disputes between product manufacturers and suppliers.

Michael Ward | Real Estate & Environmental

Michael is a transactional lawyer and deal maker. His practice is focused on real estate and corporate matters, real estate joint venture work, sale/leasebacks, traditional and mezzanine financing, fund formation matters, acquisitions, dispositions, leasing, and real estate development. Michael possesses a rare combination of a wide breadth of transactional expertise and a passion for knowing his clients deeply and understanding their businesses. This unique approach emanates from Michael’s adherence to practical legal solutions and keeping a business perspective to the matters at hand.  Michael draws upon his experience from various roles working as in-house counsel, working at AM 100 law firms, negotiating and documenting transactions for some of the world’s largest companies, and handling a wide variety of alternative financing matters.