For the second time this year, Arent Fox LLP is pleased to announce the expansion of its internationally recognized Intellectual Property practice in New York with the addition of two marquee partners. Linda Shudy Lecomte and Michelle Mancino Marsh have joined the firm from the New York office of intellectual property boutique Kenyon & Kenyon LLP, where Ms. Marsh was chair of the Fashion, Apparel and Footwear practice and Ms. Lecomte was co-chair of the Video Game Law group. Already in 2015, Arent Fox has added four intellectual property partners in New York and a total of 17 lawyers and professionals to its firmwide Intellectual Property practice. More >>

DLA Piper announced today that Kerry Johnson has joined the firm’s Finance and Real Estate Capital Markets practices as a partner in New York. More >>

Thompson & Knight LLP welcomes Partner Michael H. Peskowitz, Counsels Julia Geykhman and Lauren A. Scarantino, and Associates Michael M. Denci and Helen T. Quigley to the Firm’s New York office in the Real Estate and Banking Practice Group.

“Extensive expertise and dedication to client service are among two of the many assets this group of lawyers brings to the Firm,” said William M. O’Connor, the Firm’s New York Office Leader. “Their addition further strengthens our noted Real Estate practice in a variety of areas, including the area of commercial mortgage backed securities origination and restructuring.”

Mr. Peskowitz focuses his practice on commercial real estate finance, representing borrowers and lenders in the full range of debt and equity investment related to the development, ownership, and management of real estate projects. He has over 20 years of experience representing CMBS lenders and investors in the structuring and origination of commercial mortgage loans and mezzanine loans secured by all types of real estate assets. His practice also includes the purchase and sale of mortgage and mezzanine loans, A/B notes, and participation interests, in addition to restructuring these various debt instruments.

While the group has recently focused primarily on commercial real estate finance transactions, representing investment and commercial banks, insurance companies, and other financial institutions in the structuring and origination of commercial real estate loans, both Ms. Scarantino and Ms. Geykhman have a broad range of experience in all aspects of commercial real estate transactions.

The attorneys join Thompson & Knight from Venable LLP in New York.

B&L Management Company, a Willkie client, announced that it sold 24 mid-rise rental apartment buildings, consisting of 997 residential and commercial units located in the Chelsea and Upper East Side of Manhattan, to a joint venture lead by Blackstone Real Estate Partners VIII and Fairstead Capital for a total purchase price of $690 million. This transaction represents one of the largest individual residential asset sales in New York in the past decade and one of the largest sales of an elevator-building residential portfolio in Manhattan history. More >>

Squire Patton Boggs is pleased to announce that Norman N. Kinel has joined as partner in the firm’s Restructuring & Insolvency Practice, based in New York. Mr. Kinel joins from Lowenstein Sandler. More >>

BakerHostetler today announced Partner Geoffrey H. Coll joined the firm’s Litigation Group and Securities Litigation and Regulatory Enforcement practice in the New York office. Coll comes to BakerHostetler from Schiff Hardin. More >>

Akin Gump today announced that Parvin Daphne Moyne, formerly an assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, has joined the firm as a partner in its white collar defense and government investigations practice in New York. Ms. Moyne spent nearly a decade as a federal prosecutor, most recently serving as a member of the elite Securities and Commodities Fraud Task Force in the U.S. Attorney’s office.

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Troutman Sanders LLP announced today that Robert L. Bourguignon has rejoined the firm’s Finance practice as a partner in the New York office. Bourguignon returns from Wachtel Missry LLP, which he joined from Troutman Sanders in 2013. More >>