Ten McGuireWoods partners have been selected as members of Law360’s editorial advisory boards, underscoring the lawyers’ positions as thought leaders and top legal advisers. Board members advise the legal newswire on trends and issues facing companies, organizations, law firms and lawyers to help shape Law360’s future coverage of practice areas and industries.
The 2018 McGuireWoods editorial advisory board members are:
Bryan Fratkin (Banking) co-leads McGuireWoods’ class action practice with a focus on consumer financial services litigation. Large financial institutions turn to him for complex commercial litigation and nationwide class actions alleging violations of federal and state consumer protection laws. This is the fourth year Law360 has selected Fratkin for its banking editorial advisory board.
Kate Hardey (Life Sciences) advises on regulatory and compliance matters and conducts complex regulatory due diligence for life sciences companies on behalf of private equity companies and financial institutions. She formerly was senior regulatory counsel at a leading middle-market healthcare lender and in-house counsel for a top-10 hospital health system where she served on hospital boards and leadership teams.
Doug Lamb (Project Finance) co-leads McGuireWoods’ infrastructure-P3 initiative. Borrowers, developers, underwriters and lenders nationwide seek him out for project finance transactions and other matters involving public-private partnerships and various state and federal incentives and tax credits. He has advised clients on solid waste, economic development, transportation, social infrastructure, energy efficiency and renewable energy projects.
Jonathan Lewis (Competition) represents leading chemical, industrial equipment and water treatment systems manufacturers and other clients in antitrust and competition matters relating to transactions, litigation and the management of business risk. This is his third year to serve on Law360’s competition editorial advisory board.
Mitchell Morris (Transportation) leads McGuireWoods’ punitive damages practice. He represents transportation companies in high-profile trials and litigation matters, including a major U.S. railroad in groundbreaking RICO litigation against lawyers and a medical expert for the prosecution of fraudulent asbestos claims.
James Neale (Product Liability) is a first-chair trial lawyer with a varied product liability litigation practice focused on high-exposure cases, mass tort and class actions. As co-deputy of the firm’s food and beverage industry team, he was co-lead counsel to a Fortune 100 food manufacturer in an international recall that led to multidistrict litigation, class actions, an insurance coverage trial and personal-injury cases across the country.
Thomas Spahn (Legal Ethics), a widely published national authority on legal ethics, serves as McGuireWoods’ legal ethics counsel, a rare dedicated position among law firms. A pioneer in researching, analyzing and reporting legal ethics and privilege topics, he has delivered more than 1,700 CLE programs around the world. His many published works include roughly 900 weekly Privilege Points alerts.
Todd Steggerda (Aerospace & Defense) chairs McGuireWoods’ government contracts practice and the firm’s defense industry team. A former Navy pilot with an aerospace engineering degree, he brings more than 30 years of industry experience to complex litigation, investigations and regulatory enforcement matters for some of the top aerospace and defense companies in the world, including the country’s premier space launch company.
Gerald V. Thomas II (Tax) is a highly experienced tax lawyer who chairs McGuireWoods’ business tax group. His extensive transactional tax practice includes advising independent sponsors, private equity funds and companies across industries in structuring high-stakes transactions from a favorable tax perspective. He chairs the Real Estate Investment Trust Committee of the ABA Section of Real Property, Trust and Estate Law.
Rachelle Thompson (Intellectual Property) is a former patent prosecutor who brings an advanced technical background to litigating patent disputes in industries such as biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, telecommunications, smartphones, wireless technology and semiconductors. She also represents clients in trademark and copyright litigation, and provides IP-related counseling on a range of technologies to clients across industries.