Thursday, February 18, 2010
Page 3
Head of Venable’s Auto Dealer Practice Leads Shift to Arent Fox
By a MetNews Staff Writer
Six attorneys from Venable LLP’s automotive industry group, including the group’s chair, Aaron H. Jacoby, yesterday made a lateral move to Arent Fox LLP’s Los Angeles office.
Jacoby will co-chair the Arent Fox automotive practice, along with Christopher H. Grigorian, who resides at the Arent Fox office in Washington, D.C., the firm said. He joined as a partner, along with John D. Bronstein and Richard D. Buckley Jr.
Kenneth Murphy also joined as counsel while Victor P. Danhi and Melanie S. Joo joined as associates.
Jacoby said his team was “enthused and proud to be joining Arent Fox,” and “helping launch this major expansion of the firm’s automotive practice to the West Coast.”
Arent Fox Chairman Marc Fleischaker praised the new partners as “extraordinarily talented attorneys, each possessing a tremendous amount of legal experience in the automotive industry and related fields.”
‘Widely Respected’
He opined that the entire team was “widely respected for their extensive work representing automotive dealerships and automotive dealer groups in virtually all aspects of the business,” and that their experience and knowledge of the automotive industry was “a perfect complement to Arent Fox’s existing automotive practice.”
Robert C. O’Brien, managing partner for the firm’s Los Angeles office, remarked that the six attorneys were “great additions” whose “experience bolsters and deepens our automotive and litigation practices at a time that businesses here in California and across the country are seeking pragmatic solutions to increasingly difficult financial and legal challenges.”
Jacoby’s practice focuses on class actions and consumer litigation, unfair competition, defending government investigations, and federal and state regulatory matters affecting the automotive industry, the firm said.
He attended the University of San Francisco School of Law after graduating from UC Santa Cruz and was admitted to practice in 1988.
Bronstein focuses his practice on counseling automotive, commercial trucking and transportation clients in federal and state regulatory matters, defense against personal injury and consumer litigation, and government investigations, the firm said.
The Loyola Law School graduate attended UCLA and joined the State Bar in 1981.
Practice Areas
Buckley’s practice involves business litigation, including class actions, with an emphasis on the automotive and entertainment industries, the firm said.
He attended the University of Tulsa College of Law, where he served as the Notes and Comments Editor at the Tulsa Law Journal, after graduating magna cum laude from USC. Buckley was admitted to practice in 1997.
Murphy’s practice encompasses business entity formation, structured financing, acquisition and development of dealership facilities, business planning, regulatory compliance, franchise and customer relations and disputes, and purchase and sale of dealerships.
He is a graduate of USC Law School and the University of Santa Clara who gained admission to the State Bar in 1964.
Danhi advises automotive industry clients, including large national and regional dealership groups, in consumer class actions and complex litigation, federal and state regulatory matters, unfair competition cases, consumer warranty claims, consumer fraud litigation, franchise disputes and the sale or acquisition of motorcycle dealerships.
The attorney attended Loyola Law School, where he was a member of the Scott Moot Court Honors Board, after graduating cum laude from Pepperdine University. He was admitted to practice in 2000.
Joo focuses on commercial litigation, class actions, consumer litigation, government regulatory matters and administrative proceedings.
She attended the Tulane University Law School, where she served Senior Case Notes Editor at the Journal of American Arbitration and sat on the Executive Editorial Board, after graduating from USC. She joined the State Bar in 2005.
Office Expansion
The six new attorneys raise the population of Arent Fox’s Los Angeles office to over 40, a more-than-four-fold expansion from when the office opened in January 2007 with nine members.
Arent Fox also maintains offices in Washington, D.C., and New York with over 350 attorneys worldwide. Its practice areas include intellectual property, real estate, health care, life sciences, complex litigation and government relations.
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