Firm Partners Recognized for Client Service Excellence
Latham & Watkins partners James Brandt, William Finnegan, Philip Perry, Kenneth Simon, and Peggy Zwisler have been recognized for client service excellence in an annual survey of US corporate leaders conducted by BTI Consulting Group. The “BTI Client Service All-Stars 2014” list is based on feedback by corporate counsel and executives at Fortune 1000 companies and large financial institutions, and it includes lawyers who are dedicated to providing “the absolute best client service” while being “innovative thought leaders” in their practice areas, according to BTI Consulting.
New York Office Managing Partner James Brandt is an experienced trial attorney who practices regularly in state and federal courts. He has handled cases in numerous jurisdictions, including, among others, New York, California, Delaware, Illinois and Florida, as well as numerous cross-border controversies and a variety of matters in alternative dispute resolution forums. He specializes in complex commercial litigation, as well as securities litigation and litigation in the bankruptcy courts. He was an integral part of the team that successfully challenged the New York City “soda ban.” Brandt was a 2011 “BTI Client Service All-Star.”
Finnegan’s practice covers a broad range of corporate and securities transactions, including the representation of issuers and underwriters in public and private offerings of debt and equity securities, negotiating and structuring public and private company acquisitions, forming and financing joint ventures and partnerships, and advising on general corporate and securities transactions. He has represented some of the largest energy companies in the world, with a specific focus on energy master limited partnerships (MLPs).
Perry, a litigation partner in the firm’s Washington, D.C. office, handles a range of complex litigation and federal administrative law matters and commercial disputes. Over the past decade, Perry has served in a number of prominent positions in the US government, including at the Department of Justice, the White House, and the Department of Homeland Security. Since returning from government service to Latham, Perry’s practice has focused on biotechnology, complex government contracting issues, environmental issues (specifically NEPA and endangered species matters), and cutting-edge FDA matters. Perry was a 2013 “BTI Client Service All-Star.”
As a partner in the Energy Regulatory & Markets and Project Finance Practice Groups, Simon has concentrated his practice on representing energy and utility companies, investors, underwriters and lenders on energy regulatory and markets matters. For more than 30 years, he has appeared before federal and state regulatory agencies and in court in a wide variety of proceedings, including landmark cases with broad application to the energy industry, and he has led or supported energy finance and M&A transactions, including some of the largest global and U.S. transactions.
Zwisler, a partner in the firm’s Washington, D.C. office, is an antitrust litigator with more than 35 years of experience. She has successfully represented antitrust defendants in numerous trials and achieved significant victories for them through both procedural and substantive dispositive motions, including a recent win establishing a client’s immunity from antitrust suits based on its insurance rates. She also is nationally recognized as one of the leading class action defense lawyers in the United States. Zwisler was also a “BTI Client Service All-Star” in 2001, 2002, and 2012.
Brandt, Finnegan, Perry, Simon, and Zwisler join a distinguished list of partners from around the globe who have been recognized by BTI in recent years. Prior “Client Service All-Stars” include:
- Glen Ireland, London
- Peter W. Devereaux, Los Angeles
- Katherine A. Lauer, San Diego
- G. Andrew Lundberg, Los Angeles
- Howard T. Rosenblatt, Brussels
- Michael E. Dillard, Houston