BALLARD SPAHR - Key Persons
Amy Arndt is a member of the firm's Elected Board, is a member of the Mergers and Acquisitions Group, and is the Practice Leader of the firm's Owner-Managed and Closely Held Businesses Group. Known for her strategic and client service-oriented approach, assists business owners with operational issues, management succession, financing options for growth, and restructuring. Her practice emphasizes advising privately held companies on private offerings/placements and finance, corporate governance, disclosure matters, mergers and acquisition transactions, and asset acquisitions and divestitures. She acts as outside general counsel to clients advising on various matters including formation, shareholder agreements, and internal corporate structuring.
Job Titles:
- Director of Office Administration
Job Titles:
- Director of Office Administration
Job Titles:
- Director of Office Administration
Job Titles:
- Partner
- Co - Leader
- Managing Partner of Ballard Spahr 's Denver
- Office Managing Partner
Damon O. Barry is the Managing Partner of Ballard Spahr's Denver and Boulder offices and is a member of the firm's Senior Leadership Team. As an experienced M&A and government affairs attorney, Damon solves problems for his clients and assists companies with complex business and legal transactions.
He advises and represents both buyers and sellers in mergers and acquisitions, recapitalizations, and sophisticated commercial transactions. Damon's clients include directors and executives of public companies, owners of closely held companies, executives and directors of government agencies and others in a wide range of industries including software and technology, retail, hospitality, food and beverage, real estate, cannabis, financial services, government and manufacturing. He also advises professional athletes and coaches on sports law matters.
A former in-house counsel, Damon routinely advises corporate legal departments as well as serves as outside general counsel for middle-market companies.
Damon spent more than a decade at a publicly traded, multinational corporation where he served as Vice President of Business Affairs, Assistant General Counsel (Deputy), and Corporate Secretary. In that role, he advised the executive team and provided oversight on the operational and legal aspects of all business operations, including corporate growth strategies, corporate governance, and oversight of regional operations in Europe and Central and Latin America. In this position, Damon played a key role in a number of mergers, acquisitions, and commercial transactions exceeding $3.5 billion in value.
Damon is a Co-Leader of the firm's Cannabis and Psychedelics Team. In that role, he provides strategic advice to organizations as they navigate the patchwork of state and federal laws governing cannabis and psychedelics use.
Job Titles:
- Partner
- Managing Partner of Ballard Spahr 's Phoenix
- Named Phoenix Office Managing Partner
- Office Managing Partner
David J. Armstrong is the Managing Partner of Ballard Spahr's Phoenix office and a member of the firm's Senior Leadership Team. He is an experienced environmental litigator, but also devotes a significant amount of his practice to advising clients on environmental risks and liabilities in corporate and real estate transactions and regulatory compliance.
David has significant experience in prosecuting and defending cost recovery and contribution claims under federal and state environmental statutes and defending environmental enforcement matters. He has vast experience conducting environmental due diligence, negotiating environmental indemnity agreements, and drafting prospective purchase agreements and environmental insurance policies.
Job Titles:
- Director of Office Administration
Dominic J. De Simone is the Co-Chair of Ballard Spahr's national Finance Department, Co-Leader of the firm's Real Estate Private Credit and High-Yield Team, and Leader of the Commercial Loan Servicing, and Distressed Real Estate Teams. He practices general real estate law, with a focus on real estate finance, transaction structuring and restructuring, and distressed real estate matters on behalf of lenders, special servicers, investors, and borrowers. Dominic also has extensive experience representing real estate purchasers and sellers, developers, landlords and tenants, and court-appointed receivers.
Dominic is particularly known for his work with balance-sheet and CMBS loan originations, construction loan transactions, intercreditor matters, loan and investment structuring and restructurings, and workout and enforcement matters, all involving such varied project types as retail, office, industrial, multifamily, student housing, hotel, residential and commercial condominiums including broken condominiums, single-family tract development, assisted-living facilities, gaming, and mixed-use developments. He has advised on a wide variety of single- and multi-lender financing structures, including acquisition, construction, revolving, leasehold mortgage, CMBS, and mezzanine loan transactions; subscription facilities; A/B loan splits; loan participations; note financings; New Markets Tax Credit transactions; sale-leaseback transactions; and bond financing transactions.
Dominic also has extensive experience in property and loan acquisitions and sales, development transactions, REO transactions, receivership matters and sales, as well as retail, office, and warehouse leasing transactions on behalf of both landlords and tenants, including retail tenant representation. His experience also includes build-to-suit, retail condominium, REIT-related, and military housing transactions.
Before joining the firm, Dominic was a Relationship Manager in the Real Estate Banking Division of PNC Bank, where he was responsible for the origination, underwriting, closing, restructuring, and administration of various commercial real estate financing transactions.
Job Titles:
- Experienced Public Finance Lawyer
Job Titles:
- Director of Office Administration
Job Titles:
- Managing Partner
- Partner
- General Counsel for Utah
- Office Managing Partner
Jason D. Boren is the Managing Partner of the firm's Salt Lake City office. He is an experienced litigator at both the trial and appellate levels. His litigation practice focuses on complex civil and business litigation disputes involving a wide variety of matters including corporate governance and control, employment, breach of contract, real estate and construction, receivership litigation, intellectual property and false affiliation claims. He also has successfully handled GRAMA appeals and public procurement litigation for the Utah Communications Authority against unsuccessful vendors.
Jason has unique experience with protests under the state procurement code and related litigation of public records requests and decisions. Jason secured a winning outcome on issues of first impression before the Utah Supreme Court.
Jason also has extensive experience with corporate governance disputes and dissenter's rights cases. Jason has represented officers, directors, corporations and shareholders in cases involving breaches fiduciary duty, breaches of contract, conversion, conspiracy, dissolution and appraisal of shares pursuant to the Utah dissenter's rights statute. Jason is one of a few lawyers in Utah who has handled a dissenters' rights appraisal proceedings through trial.
Jason's employment practice includes representation of employers in actions involving age discrimination, sexual harassment, failure to accommodate, trade secrets, retaliation, FMLA, breach of non-solicitation, noncompetition and non-disclosure agreements, wrongful discharge, employment tort claims, including claims for defamation and emotional distress, and employee benefits and disputes arising under ERISA.
Jason's real estate litigation practice includes representation of clients in disputes involving construction, condemnation, landlord/tenant, zoning, premises liability, easements, developer liability, real estate broker and agent liability, foreclosure, and quiet title actions.
Jason serves as outside general counsel for Utah to a large medical professional liability insurance company.
At Ballard Spahr, Jason has served in various leadership roles including hiring partner for the Salt Lake City office, and a member of the firm's Allocation Committee.
Job Titles:
- Director of Office Administration
Job Titles:
- Partner
- Managing Partner of Ballard Spahr 's New
- Named Managing Partner of Ballard Spahr 's New Jersey Office
- Office Managing Partner
Jeffrey S. Beenstock is Managing Partner of Ballard Spahr's New Jersey office and a member of the firm's Senior Leadership Team. He is a transactional real estate attorney with more than 20 years of experience representing businesses, real estate investors, developers, and lenders, as well as public sector agencies, in a range of transactions and projects. He has guided and closed a wide variety of real estate and finance transactions as well as the real estate aspects of corporate transactions, including large, high-profile mergers and acquisitions and divestitures. Although Jeff works on all types of real estate transactions, he has significant experience in affordable housing, redevelopment, leasing, and eminent domain law.
Job Titles:
- Director of Office Administration
Job Titles:
- Consumer Financial Services Attorney
Job Titles:
- Director of Office Administration
Job Titles:
- Director of Office Administration
Molly Bryson focuses her practice both on using federal and state tax credits to finance affordable housing, businesses in low-income communities, historic preservation, and solar energy, and on using the Qualified Opportunity Zone (QOZ) program to finance community economic development throughout the U.S. and its territories. She leads the firm's Affordable Housing and Community Development Group.
Molly focuses the affordable housing portion of her practice on providing strategic tax and business advice for both low-income and mixed-income projects financed by the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) available to housing authorities, state housing finance agencies, developers, investors, and syndicators. Many of these matters involve additional federal and/or state subsidy programs, like HUD's Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD) program. She also regularly advises on tax-exempt issues that can arise with the involvement of nonprofit developers, Year 15 issues, and risk assessments of LIHTC investment funds. She served as the firm's representative on the Board of the Affordable Housing Tax Credit Coalition from 2015 to 2017, and has advocated on Capitol Hill for the strengthening and expansion of the Low Income Housing Tax Credit on behalf of the Affordable Housing Tax Credit Coalition and the Affordable Rental Housing Action Campaign.
Molly focuses the New Markets Tax Credit (NMTC) portion of her practice on CDE (lender) and QALICB (borrower) representation. Recently, she represented a CDE in its lending to borrowers that were renovating office and school spaces in low-income communities in the Maryland and D.C. areas, and represented a borrower in structuring the NMTC and historic rehabilitation tax credit (HTC) financing of a health center in Baltimore, Maryland. Molly's additional representative matters involving HTCs include representing a developer/sponsor in the structuring and negotiating of the HTC financing of a historic hotel in Baltimore, Maryland, and a historic playhouse in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
In the QOZ portion of her practice, Molly focuses on advising investors, fund managers, and developers on the evolving tax, organizational, and business structuring requirements of the program created by the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017.
Molly has spoken at a number of conferences, including ones sponsored by the American Bar Association Forum on Affordable Housing & Community Development, the National Council of State Housing Agencies, the Pennsylvania Housing Alliance, the NMTC Coalition, SEIA, CohnReznick LLP, and Novogradac & Company LLP.
Molly served on the firm's Partner Allocation Committee in 2020 and 2021, and on the firm's Committee on the Board Selection Process from 2021-2022.
Job Titles:
- Partner He / Him / His
- Practice Leader of Ballard Spahr 's Mortgage Bank
Richard J. Andreano, Jr., is the Practice Leader of Ballard Spahr's Mortgage Banking Group. He has devoted over 35 years of practice to financial services, mortgage banking, and consumer finance law. Rich is the leader of the Firm's Fair Lending Team.
Rich advises banks, lenders, brokers, home builders, title companies, insurance companies, real estate professionals, and other settlement providers on regulatory compliance and transactional matters, Federal Housing Administration (FHA) issues, and administrative examinations, enforcement actions and investigations, including fair lending matters. Rich is the principal contact for the firm in its role as federal consumer regulatory counsel to the Real Estate Services Providers Council, Inc. (RESPRO).
Rich counsels clients on issues concerning the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (RESPA), Truth in Lending Act (TILA), Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA), Fair Housing Act, Fair Credit Reporting Act (including FACTA), Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA), and Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act. He assists clients with preparing for and handling CFPB examinations and with a variety of regulatory issues, including issues relating to the implementation and compliance with CFPB mortgage rules, origination and servicing practices, loan originator and branch manager compensation, disclosures, marketing services and similar agreements, affiliated business arrangements and service arrangements. Rich previously served as an analyst for the National Association of Securities Dealers.
Rich is author of the MBA Compliance Essentials Loan Originator Compensation Rule Resource Guide and co-author of the MBA Compliance Essentials TILA RESPA Integrated Disclosure (TRID) Resource Guide. He is Editor-in-Chief of Mortgage Finance Regulation Answer Book 2011-2012, published by the Practising Law Institute; author of its chapters on the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act, and the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act; and co-author of its Equal Credit Opportunity Act and Truth in Lending Act chapters.
Additionally, Rich is an instructor for the Mortgage Bankers Association School of Mortgage Banking and is a past Chair of the California Mortgage Bankers Association Legal Issues Committee.
Job Titles:
- Director of Office Administration
Valarie J. Allen advises issuers, underwriters, and borrowers in the structuring, issuance, offering, placement, remarketing, and restructuring of tax-exempt and taxable municipal securities and other debt instruments and derivatives. She is Practice Co-Leader of the firm's Public Finance Group and serves on the firm's Elected Board and Senior Leadership Team.
Valarie serves as bond, borrower's, underwriter's, and disclosure counsel to clients across the United States. She represents investment banking firms, state housing agencies, electric-energy generation companies, educational and health care institutions, private and municipal utilities, school districts, and municipalities in virtually all areas of public finance.