Three McGuireWoods partners were selected as finalists for the 2024 American Lawyer Industry Awards and Law Firm Corporate Practices of the Year Awards. In addition, the firm was named a finalist in the Best Provider Collaboration and Corporate Culture & Wellbeing categories in the annual recognition program.
The American Lawyer will honor the finalists and announce the winners at a Nov. 13, 2024, awards gala in New York City.
McGuireWoods partner Joanne Katsantonis is a finalist for Corporate Attorney of the Year in the Private Equity and M&A category. Over the past two years, Katsantonis assisted clients in some of the energy sector’s largest and most complicated M&A deals. She advised Dominion Energy in its sale of a 50% noncontrolling interest in the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind Project to Stonepeak, a leading global infrastructure investor, for $5.635 billion. She also helped Dominion Energy negotiate a complex, cross-border $14 billion sale of three gas plants headquartered in three different states to Enbridge — North America’s largest natural gas utility by volume.
Based in Richmond, Virginia, Katsantonis served as McGuireWoods’ deputy managing partner for development from 2017 until 2023. Before that she chaired the firm’s energy industry practice and established McGuireWoods as a leader in emerging growth areas such as public utility and gas company mergers and complex joint venture structures.
Jack L. White, managing partner of the firm’s Tysons, Virginia, office, is a finalist in the Best Mentor: Law Firm category. White has mentored associates, providing professional guidance and forging personal connections that help new lawyers thrive in their careers. Associates mentored by White credit him for creating an environment of mutual trust and respect and providing feedback and support tailored to their individual needs.
Partner Elissa Baur is a finalist in the Young Lawyer of the Year – Beyond Practice category. Baur was recognized for her role leading McGuireWoods’ Afghan refugee project, a pro bono team of 34 attorneys and paralegals working to help former Afghan soldiers and their families start new lives in the United States. The multidisciplinary team has helped over 40 Afghan refugees secure asylum in the United States and assisted many of those individuals with green card applications.
McGuireWoods was named a finalist in the Best Provider Collaboration category for its role as co-counsel in a multiplaintiff suit challenging practices by the city of Los Angeles related to the confiscation and disposal of unhoused people’s belongings. McGuireWoods is partnering with the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles, law firms Kirkland & Ellis and Schonbrun Seplow Harris Hoffman & Zeldes, and the Human Rights Litigation Clinic at UCLA.
The pro bono team secured a preliminary injunction forcing the city to halt enforcement of an ordinance provision authorities cited as justification to seize and discard belongings and persuaded a federal appeals court to uphold the injunction while the litigation proceeds.
McGuireWoods also earned recognition in the Corporate Culture & Wellbeing category for a project called “What’s In a Name?” The initiative deploys a technology tool that promotes inclusion and belonging across the firm by broadcasting the correct pronunciation of names. Lawyers and business professionals use computer microphones or headsets to record pronunciations of their names. Their recordings are added to their email signature blocks and the firm directory, where they can be heard by simply clicking a “play” button. Empowering people to pronounce their own names instead of settling for computer-generated pronunciations ensures accuracy and is identity-affirming and more personal.
In addition to these honors, McGuireWoods was named a finalist in the Community Impact Leaders category in The National Law Journal’s Legal Awards program. The firm earned recognition for social responsibility and pro bono initiatives; environmental impact; and responding to growing client demand for guidance on environmental, social and corporate governance issues. Winners will be announced Oct. 24, 2024, at an awards ceremony in Washington, D.C. “We are proud to be recognized for impactful work by outstanding lawyers and for building and sustaining an inclusive culture that enables us to deliver the highest level of service to clients,” said Managing Partner J. Tracy Walker IV.