Husch Blackwell has steadily bulked up its corporate and transactional law team in 2022, adding 11 lawyers who span four of its six strategic business units and are resident in nine offices across the firm’s footprint. Since January, the firm’s Corporate/M&A practice has seen arrivals of four partners, including Ericka Curls Bartling (Oakland), Michael Dana (The Link), Robert Joseph (Chicago), and Brent Salmons (Washington, D.C.). The firm also added noted attorneys Andrew Demetriou (Los Angeles), Madeline Thomas (The Link), and Allan Williams (Omaha) as senior counsel.
“There are major consolidations and reconfigurations occurring across multiple industries, and the steady hand of experienced dealmakers will be a key to growth,” Husch Blackwell Chair Catherine Hanaway. “We’re very pleased to be joined by such excellent lawyers.”
Curls Bartling led and managed the law firm she founded, Curls Bartling P.C., for 15 years prior to joining Husch Blackwell in September. She serves privately held businesses, nonprofit organizations, and governmental entities and handles a variety of transactions, including mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures and strategic collaborations, business formations and reorganizations, commercial contracts, financing, and IT-related transactions. She has particularly deep experience in public finance, specifically as it relates to the issuance of general obligation bonds, project revenue bonds, and lease revenue bonds. She has been involved in a broad range of financings, including those related to the generation or transmission of power, the provision of water, wastewater, and transportation services, the acquisition and construction of general infrastructure and real property, and the development of affordable housing.
Dana joined the firm’s Link office in April 2022 and provides tax and corporate law advice to both established and emerging businesses. Dana brings significant tax law experience in connection with acquisitions, distribution structures, and internal reorganizations, including complex crossborder transactions. He also has broad experience advising private funds, investment management firms, and investment industry professionals. In addition to tax counsel, he often renders advice regarding the Securities Act of 1933 and the Investment Advisers Act of 1940, as well as a host of fund formation issues for private equity and hedge funds. Additionally, he works with institutional investors, advising them on investments across a range of assets, including alternative investment products.
Joseph arrived in Husch Blackwell’s Chicago office in May 2022, where he counsels energy companies and financial institutions on complex financings and securities law issues in connection with an array of energy projects. He represents both issuers and underwriters in connection with numerous corporate finance transactions, including initial public offerings, SEC-registered debt and equity offerings, Rule 144A transactions, project finance and acquisition finance. He integrates this transactional experience with a deep understanding of federal securities law and frequently advises energy companies regarding their disclosure obligations, as well as corporate governance issues, ESG matters, and stock exchange listing standards.
Salmons joined the firm’s Washington office in August 2022. His practice focuses on complex corporate and financing transactions, including mergers, acquisitions and joint ventures, debt and equity financing, capital markets, and business formation. He also serves clients as strategic outside counsel, providing general corporate advice across a broad range of matters. He has particular experience assisting clients in the emerging cannabis space, where he has represented operators with M&A transactions, as well as lenders to the industry seeking to navigate the difficult regulatory challenges associated with finance transactions involving cannabis industry participants. He has significant experience with the energy and real estate industries, particularly in the areas of project finance and fund formation, and also represents government contractors involved in complex change-of-control transactions.
The firm also added associates Auriel Ackerman, Jon Beeman, Chelsey Gilinsky and Dakota Parish.
Husch Blackwell’s transactional practices are nationally recognized. It is among a handful of law firms nationally ranked by The Legal 500 as a leader in the area of middle-market mergers and acquisitions and has been nationally ranked for several years by U.S. News & World Report and Best Lawyers “Best Law Firms” in the areas of Mergers & Acquisitions Law, Leveraged Buyouts and Private Equity Law, Banking & Finance Law, Securities/Capital Markets Law, and Tax Law.