Hogan Lovells today announced the expansion of its Los Angeles Office with the addition of a prominent, long-standing corporate transactional team. Veteran Los Angeles corporate and mergers and acquisitions partner Barry Dastin, prominent media and entertainment partner Sheri Jeffrey, and corporate and M&A partner Russ Cashdan will join Hogan Lovells’ Los Angeles office. The three partners have worked together as a team for more than fifteen years.
“The profile and experience this group brings to our Los Angeles office are precisely what we are focused upon at Hogan Lovells,” said Warren Gorrell, Co-CEO of Hogan Lovells. “Barry, Sheri, and Russ will complement our firm-wide Corporate Transactional Group, increasing both our breadth and depth on the West Coast, and their cross-border and domestic practices will integrate well with our global practice.”
Barry Dastin and Russ Cashdan bring a wealth of experience handling a wide variety of corporate transactions, including representation of boards of directors, special committees, and investment banks in major acquisitions and sales, going private transactions, and financings. Sheri Jeffrey brings significant expertise and entertainment transactional experience, as lead outside counsel in the complex legal management of major theatrical motion pictures, television programming, and the interplay between media and new technologies, beginning from rights acquisitions through worldwide financing and distribution arrangements. The group joins Hogan Lovells from a New York-based Am Law 100 firm.
“We are thrilled to have such well-established members of the Los Angeles business and legal communities join our firm,” said Los Angeles office Managing Partner Stephen Kay. “Their addition strengthens both our domestic and cross-border M&A practice, as well as our global Technology, Media and Telecommunications team.”
Dastin commented on the move, “I have known key members of Hogan Lovells for a long time and have had the highest regard for the firm. We are excited to have the opportunity to help build Hogan Lovells’ West Coast presence and to take advantage of the firm’s unique cross-border platform.”
Dastin’s practice has constituted a mix of cross-border and domestic transactions, both private and public, including acting as lead counsel for the special committee of a leading West Coast based public company in its sale to top tier private equity firms at a US $28 billion dollar enterprise value. His industry transactional expertise ranges from media and entertainment, aerospace and defense, technology, consumer products, and retailing. Over the course of his career, he has served as counsel for the issuers or investment banks in a large number of public offerings and private placements of debt or equity. He also has acted in various major restructurings of Latin American sovereign debt. Dastin received his B.A. magna cum laude from Yale College and his J.D., cum laude, from Harvard Law School.
Jeffrey’s practice covers a wide range of entertainment matters. She has been lead counsel in the development, distribution and financing, and worldwide exploitation of numerous major theatrical motion pictures, including two Academy Award Best Picture films Argo and The Departed, as well as Hugo, The Aviator, Gangs of New York, and the upcoming feature film Jersey Boys. She also acted as lead bank counsel in The Lord of the Rings feature films. Currently, she has taken an active role in the growing interplay between Chinese media companies and investors and Hollywood. Jeffrey works as a fully integrated part of the team, particularly with respect to merger and acquisition transactions in the media and entertainment sector. She received her B.S., cum laude, from Loyola Marymount University, her J.D. from Loyola Law School, and her LL.M. from New York University.
Cashdan works primarily on mergers and acquisitions, finance, and general corporate matters. Having been trained at Skadden Arps, his clients have included public and private companies, banks, venture debt funds, private equity funds, underwriters and investment bankers, special committees, officers, and directors. Cashdan received his B.A., summa cum laude, from the State University of New York at Albany and his J.D. from the University of Southern California Gould School of Law.
