Dickinson Wright Opens Chicago Office

CHICAGO – Dickinson Wright PLLC is pleased to announce that the firm’s Chicago office is now opened. With the acquisition of Stahl Cowen Crowley Addis LLC, Dickinson Wright has added 12 attorneys to its ranks and its 19th office. The Chicago office is a key part of the firm’s strategic growth plan and further enhances its North American footprint.

“Dickinson Wright’s entry into the major money market of Chicago is a natural progression of our national strategic approach,” says Michael C. Hammer, CEO of Dickinson Wright. “We look forward to joining the Chicago business community while continuing to expand our offerings to our clients from around the U.S.”

The Chicago office, housed at 55 West Monroe, Suite 1200, has nine partners, three associates and eight staff members. Led by well-known Chicago lawyer Jeffrey J. Stahl, the office will handle real estate, corporate, litigation, employment and M&A as well as restructuring and arbitration matters. The attorneys represent clients in banking, manufacturing, real estate, title insurance, agriculture, health care, private equity, technology and transportation.

“We are thrilled to join Dickinson Wright and to help the firm establish a foothold in the Chicago market,” says Mr. Stahl, who manages the Chicago office and is a member of the firm’s Real Estate practice group. “With strong relationships and a long-standing presence in the community, we look forward to continuing to serve our clients at the highest level of quality and expertise they have come to expect from us while giving them access to legal resources across Dickinson Wright’s expansive national and international platform.”

Below is a brief bio for each of Dickinson Wright’s new attorneys:

Lauane Addis, Member – Mr. Addis focuses has a corporate practice on mergers and acquisitions, internal expansion through public offerings, private placements, and bank, fund, and private equity financing. He provides the practical advice on best practices and regulatory compliance they need to navigate a wide range of operating issues, like employment, taxation, succession planning, real estate, leasing, finance, and more, structure and reorganize their businesses, partnerships, and limited liability companies, and finance operations. He has served as general counsel for two startups and in-house counsel and chief financial officer for a small public company.

Andrea Briski, Associate – Ms. Briski helps clients close deals. Her broad experience managing real estate transactions of all types and sizes, from single-office leases to multi-billion-dollar syndicated loans, and everything in-between, allows her to anticipate and resolve issues before they turn into business-critical problems. Andrea guides buyers and sellers, landlords and tenants, REITs and investors, owners, banks, developers, finance companies, management groups, lenders, borrowers, and others through complex commercial real estate deals, including acquisitions, dispositions, leasing, and financing transactions.

Jon Cohen, Member - As general business counsel for his clients, Mr. Cohen is often the first person they call for guidance on a broad range of issues. He helps them reduce employee expenses, draft and negotiate commercial contracts, and consider and plan for future expansion. He advises them on shareholder disputes, regulatory compliance, and insurance disputes. For a global IT company with over 10,000 employees, Jon provides advice on nearly every legal issue impacting its US operations.

Ron Damashek, Member - Mr. Damashek untangles real estate disputes for his clients. He analyzes coverage and addresses agent liability for title insurance companies, and represents their insureds on claims involving title defects, such as competing lien priorities, alleged unauthorized public record recordings, boundary disputes, and agent liability. Ron’s cases run the gamut from confirming free and clear home ownership to protecting mortgagees and reducing insurance exposure in the face of pervasive title and wire fraud.

Joseph Delehanty, Associate – Mr. Delehanty helps businesses prevail in a broad range of business and intellectual property disputes. He works closely with clients to set and pursue litigation strategies that match their broader business objectives, and then execute those strategies to achieve their goals.

Andrew Eres, Member – Mr. Eres's clients – financial institutions, corporations, partnerships, real estate developers and investors, creditors, and individuals – rely on him for business and strategic solutions to a wide range of liability issues and creditor disputes. He helps community, regional, and national banks, private equity funds, non-traditional lenders, debt buyers and mortgage servicers protect their investments in commercial lending, commercial workout matters and lender liability and fraud issues.

Timothy Fitzgerald, Member - Mr. Fitzgerald guides closely-held and middle-market businesses, business owners, investors, and others through a broad range of transactional activity, including mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, and other business reorganizations. A Certified Public Accountant (CPA) who's equally comfortable reading a balance sheet as his a purchase agreement, Tim helps his clients navigate a steady flow of day-to-day "running the business" issues: contractual matters, employment issues, tax solutions, and other considerations.

Jeremy Kreger, Member – Mr. Kreger positions his clients to reach their goals. As a commercial litigator and business counselor, Jeremy resolves a wide range of disputes on their behalf: over shareholder agreements, restrictive covenants in employment contracts, business breakups, contractual and fiduciary obligations, trademark and copyright issues, labor relations, and the misappropriation of trade secrets, for example. Jeremy knows that his clients' success depends upon his understanding of their objectives in every single matter he undertakes.

Robert Mintz, Member – Whether he's working with entrepreneurs to form, finance, and grow companies, guiding family and other closely-held businesses through strategic planning efforts in preparation for a sale, or assisting Fortune 1000 public companies with major acquisitions, Rob encourages his clients look beyond their immediate goals and needs to envision the full potential of their business and identify the steps to get to the next phase.

Thomas Moffitt, Member – Mr. Moffitt helps clients – developers and investors, landlords and tenants, lenders and borrowers – negotiate and carry out successful real estate deals. He puts together acquisitions and dispositions of developed and undeveloped properties. He works with lenders and borrowers to finance transactions, document loans, and structure workouts of troubled assets. He prepares construction contracts, counsels on construction disputes and advises developers and property owners on a broad range of land use matters, including zoning modifications, subdivision approvals and annexation agreements.

Alexandria Seydel, Associate – Ms. Seydel helps local impact businesses – companies in the growing sector of social innovation, impact investing, and for-profit socially driven entities – create profit with purpose. She works with her clients to transform their for-profit businesses into benefit corporations (B Corp) and limited liability companies (LC3). She ensures their ongoing compliance with reporting requirements under the state laws that regulate their status. And she helps them achieve the certification they need to receive recognition for the social benefits they generate.

Jeffrey Stahl, Member – Mr. Stahl takes his clients’ success personally. Responsive and practical, he helps the companies he represents – commercial real estate developers and investors, real estate investment trusts, business buyers and sellers, financial institutions, and more – identify and execute creative solutions to the problems that keep them from achieving their goals. He has helped clients acquire nearly every type of commercial property on the market: major flag hotels, retail developments ranging from single-tenant triple-net to grocery-anchored strips to power centers to malls, office buildings, warehouse and industrial space, self-storage and tech buildings, apartment complexes, entertainment destinations (including land-based and dockside casinos), and a wide variety of mixed-use properties.