Duane Morris Names Eight Attorneys to Partnership
Duane Morris LLP is pleased to announce that it has promoted to the firm partnership eight associates and special counsel in six of the firm’s offices.
These newly named partners are:
Business Reorganization and Financial Restructuring Practice Group: Jarret P. Hitchings, Wilmington
Corporate Practice Group: Joseph J. Machi, San Diego
Employment, Labor, Benefits & Immigration Practice Group: Maxine D. Bayley, San Francisco; Meagan E. Garland, San Diego
Intellectual Property Practice Group: James A. Cooke III, Washington, D.C.
Trial Practice Group: Lynne E. Evans, Philadelphia; Elinor H. Murárová, Chicago; Owen Newman, Chicago
Maxine D. Bayley practices in the area of immigration law, representing clients in matters involving the employment of foreign nationals in a variety of industries, as well as individual matters including family-based permanent residence and naturalization. She has in-depth experience representing individual and corporate clients with regard to H, L, O, E-3 and TN nonimmigrant matters, as well as EB-1 immigrant visas. Bayley also represents clients in complex immigration cases, including immigrant and nonimmigrant waivers of inadmissibility, Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) petitions, consular processing and immigration ramifications of criminal charges. She also has experience with asylum and federal court litigation pertaining to immigration matters. Bayley is a frequently featured speaker at national, state and local conferences.
Bayley is a graduate of the American University, Washington College of Law (J.D., 2004) and Gonzaga University (B.A., 2001). She serves as chair of the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) Northern California Chapter and is on AILA’s board of governors.
James A. (“Jamie”) Cooke III, Ph.D., focuses his practice on patent prosecution management, strategic client counseling, opinion preparation on issues relating to infringement and validity, and post-grant review proceedings, with an emphasis on software, business methods, graphical user interfaces and related technologies developed and implemented by the financial services industry. As a member of Duane Morris’ Fintech Industry Group, Cooke counsels financial institutions, technology companies and emerging startups on the development, implementation and protection of distributed-ledger and blockchain technologies, smart contracts, machine learning and artificial intelligence models, post-quantum cryptographic algorithms, payment systems and innovative cryptocurrency and token technologies. He has extensive experience counseling clients in patent, trademark and copyright matters related to software, mobile applications, electronic trading platforms, graphical user interfaces, content management and delivery systems, Internet-of-Things (IoT) technologies and video compression and image processing technologies. Cooke also regularly counsels clients in the life-sciences industry on the patent eligibility of computer-implemented diagnostic tools and computer-implemented gene-editing tools before the U.S. and foreign patent offices.
Cooke is a graduate of Georgetown University Law Center (J.D., 2011), Yale University (Ph.D., mechanical engineering, 2006) and the University of Maryland (B.S., cum laude, 1999). He also served as a visiting researcher at the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, concentrating on the development and implementation of solutions to complex fluid-dynamic and chemical-kinetic problems across massively parallel, distributed-memory computing systems.
Lynne E. Evans is a trial lawyer and counselor with significant experience representing financial institutions, corporate and government entities and individual clients in matters in federal and state courts throughout the United States. Her areas of practice include complex commercial litigation, matters involving breach of contract, negligence, fraud, RICO, breach of fiduciary duties, consumer class actions, and internal and government investigations. Evans also handles a wide variety of banking-related matters, including claims involving bank regulations, the Uniform Commercial Code, NACHA rules, numerous consumer protection status and bank secrecy laws. She represents clients at all phases of litigation, including pre-litigation counseling and investigation, motion practice, requests for injunctive relief, discovery, trial and appeal, and at mediation and arbitration. Evans also frequently advises clients in assessing business transactions and strategies designed to avoid litigation and manage risk.
Evans is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania Law School (J.D., cum laude, 2012) and Duke University (A.B., magna cum laude, 2008), where she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. She chairs the firm’s Philadelphia office Inclusion Committee and serves on the Philadelphia office Recruitment and Retention Committee.
Meagan E. Garland is a litigator and trusted advisor to employers of varying industries. Her clients are burgeoning start-ups, multijurisdictional and multinational employers. Garland’s particular industry focus is fashion and beauty, though she has a wealth of experience representing employers across dozens of industries, including hospitality, food services, energy and solar, janitorial services, construction, education, health and wellness, healthcare, financial services, real estate, emergency services, transportation, retail and technology. Garland represents employers in wage-and-hour, harassment, discrimination, and retaliation disputes before state and federal courts and administrative agencies. She provides day-to-day advice and counseling to employers on employee-related issues as they arise, including leave administration and disability accommodation, wage-and-hour compliance, classification determinations, discipline and termination procedures and employee disputes. Garland regularly conducts training for employers on sexual harassment prevention, ADA compliance, management best practices, sensitivity respect and professionalism, and customized trainings. Additionally, she is a business partner with her clients and regularly assists them in developing and executing strategic goals to improve their workplaces, as well as crafting policies and agreements to minimize risk. Often, Garland lends her employment-related knowledge to corporations engaged in complex transactions, including mergers and acquisitions. She is also a diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging (DEIB) consultant. Garland develops customized programming to aid employers in setting and achieving proper DEIB objectives. She provides training to workforces, executives, and directors on implicit bias, pay equity, microaggression and related topics.
Garland is a graduate of Boston College Law School (J.D., 2006), where she was staff editor for the Boston College Environmental Affairs Law Review and top-ranking oralist in the Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition, and Spelman College (B.A., summa cum laude, 2003), where she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. She is a steering committee member of the Duane Morris Women’s Impact Network for Success (WINS), chair of the Duane Morris San Diego Diversity and Inclusion Committee, WINS programming chair for the San Diego office and co-chair of the Duane Morris Recruiting Committee in San Diego.
Jarret P. Hitchings practices in the area of commercial finance and corporate restructuring. He regularly represents business debtors, committees, lenders, trustees and creditors, particularly with respect to bankruptcy litigation. Hitchings also represents agents, lenders and borrowers in financial transactions, and lenders, servicers, corporations and management in connection with governance issues and commercial disputes.
Hitchings is a graduate of Villanova University School of Law (J.D., magna cum laude, 2010), where he was elected to the Order of the Coif, and the Pennsylvania State University (B.A., 2007).
Joseph Machi represents clients across the country in mergers and acquisitions, securities offerings and other complex transactions and general corporate matters. He advises public and private companies, private equity funds and their portfolio companies, family business owners and founders in buy-side and sell-side transactions. Machi has substantial experience in mergers and acquisitions in a variety of industries, including manufacturing, technology, hospitality and leisure and, in particular, the education/education technology sector. In addition to mergers and acquisitions, he represents investors and venture capital firms in securities offerings and other sophisticated transactions. Machi also represents growth companies and established private companies in securities offerings and other intricate transactions and general corporate and regulatory issues in numerous industries, including education, cannabis, life sciences and technology. He advises directors, management and founders on exit strategies, corporate governance matters and day-to-day operational needs.
Machi is a graduate of the University of San Diego Law School (J.D., cum laude, Order of the Coif, 2011) and the University of Southern California (B.S., cum laude, 2006). Prior to entering the practice of law, he worked as an auditor for Ernst & Young LLP, where he obtained his CPA license (now inactive).
Elinor H. Murárová is an experienced business counselor, advocate and trial attorney who maintains a national practice representing clients in complex commercial disputes. Among other things, her work includes representing creditors, CMBS servicers and other CMBS industry participants defending against lender liability claims and pursuing commercial loan workouts and other loan enforcement activities. Murárová also represents clients across many highly regulated industries, including travel and healthcare, and in a wide variety of matters, including breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duty, business tort, class action, noncompete and claims for injunctive or other immediate relief. Her work in these and other areas encompasses all aspects of civil litigation from pre-litigation alternative resolutions through trial and appeal.
Murárová is a graduate of Loyola University Chicago School of Law (J.D., magna cum laude, 2011), where she served as executive editor, student articles, for the Loyola Law Journal. She is also a graduate of Loyola University Chicago School of Business (M.B.A., 2011) and Northwestern University (B.A., 2007).
Owen Newman is a litigation attorney focusing on complex, multijurisdictional disputes and international arbitration. He advises clients in high-value disputes with particular focus on large-scale engineering and construction projects in the power generation and oil-and-gas sectors. Newman has represented clients in disputes around the world, including in Africa, Asia, North America and the Middle East, and has acted as counsel under the rules of the ICC, LCIA, SIAC, UNCITRAL, AAA, SCC as well as ad hoc arbitrations in India and Saudi Arabia. Prior to joining Duane Morris, he was a project manager and regional director for a global engineering and construction contractor.
Newman is a graduate of the University of Kansas School of Law (J.D., 2003) and Luther College (B.A., 1995).
