Future
stars of the City | Future
stars of Europe | Future
stars of the regions | Future
stars of the Bar
Kim Andrascik
Dechert, Philadelphia
Kim Andrascik, a real estate finance specialist at Dechert’s Philadelphia
headquarters, has been interested in the commercial world since she
undertook an internship at Hershey’s while an undergraduate student at
Shippensburg University. “I see myself as a businesswoman as well as a
lawyer and try to tailor my approach accordingly,” she says. After making
partner last year, the 32-year-old has temporarily relocated to London to
assist a UK-based client restructure a loan. The Villanova law school
graduate recently advised a group of insurance companies on the formation of
a fund to support low-income communities. Her interest in real estate also
looms large outside work: much of her free time is spent renovating the
three investment properties she owns.
Deborah Festa
O’Melveny & Myers, Los Angeles
Deborah Festa, a 33-year old corporate finance lawyer who specialises in
collateralised loan obligation transactions, is not your typical laid-back
Californian. A “driving force” behind recent multi-billion-dollar
securitisations involving KKR Financial and JSM Indochina, Festa has become
known for her ability to coordinate the various parties on a deal. After
starting her career with Fried Frank Harris Shriver & Jacobson, she
moved in-house to join Edison International, a public utility holding
company, where she acted as a specialist advisor on the effects of the
Sarbanes-Oxley Act. “The two years I spent at Edison were invaluable in
helping me to see things from the client’s perspective,” she says. The UCLA
graduate joined O’Melveny & Myers’ LA office in 2004. A keen
traveller who tries to visit a different country each year, she relishes the
international element to her job, which has seen her make frequent trips to
visit clients in Europe and Asia.
Christopher Greeno
Kirkland & Ellis, Chicago
The first member of his family to go to university, Christopher Greeno relied
on scholarships to get him through his studies at Southwest Missouri State
University and Northwestern law school. “I set my heart on becoming a lawyer
in sixth grade. I worked hard, my parents were very supportive, and
thankfully I managed to get funding to take me through my studies,” explains
the 34-year old Kirkland & Ellis corporate partner. He was the lead
lawyer for GTCR, a private equity firm, on its $1 billion dual acquisition
of Wilton International and Dimensions Crafts. Greeno is described by one
senior colleague as “way ahead of the usual learning curve”. Already a
member of the firm’s corporate practice committee — and keen to become more
involved in management — Greeno is currently handling several leveraged
buyouts on behalf of GTCR and Oaktree. Last year he spent several weeks in
Italy “working around the clock” on a joint venture between AMF Bowling and
Italian bowling equipment company Qubica.
Anne Harkavy
Wilmerhale, Washington DC
After completing law school at Harvard in 1998, Anne Harkavy, a politics
graduate, didn’t have to think twice about her next destination. “I’ve
always been interested in the intersection between law and politics,” she
explains, “so DC was the only place I wanted to be.” Nine years on and
Harkavy is a partner in Wilmerhale’s esteemed Washington public policy team.
The 34-year old was number two in the team that acted for the University of
Michigan in a recent case that established the current US rules on
affirmative action; she handled the dispute from pre-trial until its final
resolution in the Supreme Court. Harkavy, who took time out from the firm in
2004 to serve as Deputy National Counsel for Senator John Kerry’s
presidential campaign, also regularly assists in congressional hearings and
investigations. During the next few months she will be acting for BP in
response to an oversight investigation by the House Energy and Commerce
Committee.
Jyotin Hamid
Debevoise & Plimpton, New York
Part of the team representing former Tyco CEO Dennis Kozlowski in a civil
action running parallel to the well-publicised criminal case, Jyotin Hamid
is a rising star whose EQ matches his formidable IQ. “Jyo is one of those
wonderful common sense, deft touch lawyers, who not only has abundant
intellect, but understands people,” says Debevoise co-chair of litigation
John Kiernan. Last year the Yale law school graduate was lead counsel for a
group of black and Hispanic sheet metal workers in a dispute with their
union over unequal distribution of work opportunities; he previously
successfully represented General Electric in an action brought by a
competitor seeking to prevent the retention of a former employee. Despite
previously harbouring ambitions of a career in journalism, Hamid, 34, has no
regrets about becoming a lawyer. “I love the cut and thrust of litigation
and I get my writing fix from the creative process of structuring
arguments,” he says.
Yosbel Ibarra
Greenberg Traurig, Miami
Yosbel Ibarra is an M&A lawyer with a reputation as one of the most
promising Latin America specialists in the US. Described by Greenberg
Traurig global practice group chair Patricia Menendez as “the kind of guy
who wants to paint a Picasso every day”, Ibarra has just finished
representing a consortium of investors in a $700 million purchase of
McDonalds’ Latin American operations. Born in Cuba, Ibarra moved to the US
with his family at the age of six. After high school and university in
Miami, he worked for the US Olympic Committee for two years before heading
to NYU law school in 1996. “Becoming a lawyer was always part of the plan,”
he says. “Immigrant parents tend to be quite enthusiastic about that type of
thing.” Ibarra was head-hunted by the Miami office of Greenberg Traurig in
2004 after spending five years at Dorsey & Whitney in New York. The
34-year old, who was promoted to partner last year, also does regular
cross-border corporate finance work, such as advising a Peruvian fishmeal
company on a $185 million syndicated loan re-financing.
Craig Kornreich
Vinson & Elkins, Houston
Chris Kornreich is an energy lawyer who, thanks to an undergraduate degree in
engineering, knows how to “talk the talk” with his power company clients. A
subsequent MBA means that Kornreich is also no slouch on the business front.
It’s no surprise that the newly promoted partner in Vinson &
Elkins’ acclaimed Houston projects team is in huge demand. Kornreich, 34,
advised on the $45 billion acquisition of TXU, the largest ever buyout in
the US, having previously demonstrated his ability to handle complex deals
while assisting JPMorgan Chase Bank on the $325 million financing of an oil
pipeline project in the Gulf of Mexico. Originally from Florida, Kornreich
feels at home in his adopted state of Texas, which he describes as “the
place to be for energy work”. At present, the Duke University law school
graduate is assisting a company that owns several pipelines with a series of
financing transactions.
Sean Pak
Latham & Watkins, San Francisco
Previously a software engineer at Intel, Sean Pak decided to re-train as a
lawyer after becoming interested in the legal issues surrounding the
licensing of the microprocessors that he used to spend his time designing.
After attending law school at Harvard, Pak worked for two years in the
corporate department of Perkins Coie’s LA office before moving in-house to
act as corporate counsel at xSides Corporation, a Seattle-based software
company. Keen to try his hand at tech-related litigation, Pak joined Latham &
Watkins’ San Francisco IP and technology group in 2002, where his
intellectual prowess, industry expertise and people skills made him an
immediate hit with the firm’s Silicon Valley clients. A keen snowboarder who
regularly hits the slopes around Lake Tahoe in his free time, Pak is
currently assisting Symantec subsidiary Veritas in a copyright infringement
case against Microsoft. The MIT computer science graduate has also handled
patent litigation matters on behalf of leading technology companies such as
Oracle and Lexar.
Peter Pound
Bingham & McCutchen, Boston
Educated in Canada and the UK, Peter Pound is proof that a foreign legal
education is not a bar to excelling as a US lawyer. In fact, according to
Bingham partner Frances Cohen, a non-US law degree can be an advantage:
“Peter’s international experience is a real plus in that he’s very
comfortable working with clients from different cultures. It also means he
has some useful overseas contacts.” Armed with an LLB from McGill University
in Montreal (where he scored the highest grade in his year) and a first
class degree in jurisprudence from Wadham College, Oxford, Pound came to
Boston in 2003 after his wife, an emergency room doctor, secured a position
in a local hospital. Quickly finding his feet in the city, he joined
Bingham’s securities litigation team the same year, having successfully
completed the Massachusetts bar exam. Pound, 32, was a member of the team
that represented an electronic retail chain in a product protection dispute
before the federal court and he recently assisted a major financial services
company in a 20-day NASD (National Association of Securities Dealers)
arbitration.
Teena-Ann Sankoorikal
Cravath, Swaine and Moore, New York
Teena-Ann Sankoorikal, an up and coming litigator known for her methodical and
thoughtful approach, sees handling a case as similar to playing a game of
chess. “I always try to think about not only what I’m going to do next, but
what moves I’ll make two or three steps down the line,” she says. That
approach has clearly worked for the University of Pennsylvania and Yale
graduate, who has impressed while acting on a series of high profile cases,
including IBM’s copyright dispute with Compuware and a class action brought
against Vivendi, the media group, by disgruntled shareholders. Sankoorikal
is singled out by colleagues at Cravath Swaine & Moore, one of New
York’s most prestigious firms, for her focus and judgment. The 33-year old,
whose broad litigation practice spans intellectual property, securities and
competition law, is currently representing several major record companies in
a copyright action against file sharing website Limewire.
