RPJ LAW - Key Persons
Alice K. Jump is a Partner at the firm. Her practice focuses on litigation, alternative dispute resolution and business counseling, with particular emphasis on representing clients in the financial services and real estate industries as well as educational and non-profit institutions. She also counsels organizations and individuals in connection with employment, compensation and employee restrictive covenants, real estate transactions and partnership, and trust and estate matters. She has represented clients in cases before state and federal courts and other tribunals involving securities, employment, discrimination and whistleblowing claims, real estate, trusts and estates, partnerships, education and general commercial disputes.
Ms. Jump has served as a member and director of several nonprofit organizations, offering pro bono legal services to underserved groups with particular focus on the elderly.
Job Titles:
- Senior Litigation Analyst
Practice Areas
Summary
Anna Beckelman is the firm's Senior Litigation Analyst. She was previously a paralegal at Lynch Lynch Held Rosenberg, P.C., where she managed numerous high-profile personal injury cases and general liability matters. Prior to her work as a paralegal, Ms. Beckelman worked in editorial at Family Publications and Oxford University Press, Inc. She graduated with honors from Fordham University with a B.A. in English and History.
Job Titles:
- Associate
- Litigation Paralegal & Business Manager
Practice Areas
Summary
Ariana Zhao is the firm's Litigation Paralegal and Business Associate, providing legal research, business operations, and communications support. She is currently a senior at New York University (B.Sc. in Finance and Marketing). Prior to joining RPJ, Ariana worked as a Research and Strategy Intern at Energy Impact Partners, a collaborative strategic investment firm in Manhattan.
Practice Areas
Summary
Cleopatra is the firm's legal assistant providing business operations and communications support. She graduated from Brown University with honors in 2023 receiving an A.B. in Philosophy, Sociology, and Gender and Sexuality Studies. Prior to RPJ, she performed various forms of political and client-oriented advocacy through work at the public interest nonprofit MASSPIRG, the voting rights nonprofit, MA Voter Table, and the refugee resettlement agency, Refugee Dream Center.
Daniel Jason Ain is Counsel at the firm, practicing in the fields of entertainment, media and literary, intellectual property and employment law. He has counseled on a broad range of television, film and new media projects, with direct experience serving as production counsel and in representing talent. Mr. Ain is well-versed in the full range of entertainment and literary matters, negotiating transactions for clients in areas including theatre, podcasts, live music, book publishing, sports, licensing and endorsements.
Prior to joining RPJ, Mr. Ain was a Senior Associate with the Peikoff Mahan Law Office, where he directly represented actors, directors and writers. He was previously an Associate with Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP, representing corporate clients in finance transactions, mergers and acquisitions, and executive compensation matters, as well as advising high net worth individuals in estate planning. Mr. Ain also has extensive experience in Sports Law, working with Major League Baseball and serving as the Executive Editor of the Harvard Journal of Sports & Entertainment Law during law school. Mr. Ain additionally has a business background in human resource and corporate employment matters, having started his career at Google in People Operations prior to becoming an attorney.
Mr. Ain is admitted to practice in the State of New York and the District of Columbia.
Education
Mr. Ain received his undergraduate degree in Economics and Psychology from Brown University (B.A., magna cum laude, 2009) and his law degree from Harvard Law School (J.D., cum laude, 2015).
Job Titles:
- Counsel
- Board of Finance Member
Dara L. Onofrio is Patent Counsel to the firm. Her practice focuses on intellectual property matters with special emphasis on patent prosecution and licensing in numerous fields of science and technology.
Ms. Onofrio is admitted to practice in Connecticut and New York, and before the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the United States District Courts for the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York and the United States Supreme Court.
Education
Ms. Onofrio graduated with her B.S. in chemistry from Southern Connecticut State University (cum laude, 1981) and received her J.D. from Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law (1987). She attended Yale University as a Special Student in the Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry Department and thereafter completed international studies in art history at the University of Urbino, Italy (1981), and in EEC and Maritime Law at Cambridge University, England (1985). Her post-graduate research included work at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in the fields of Somatic Cell and Developmental Genetics, as well as graduate studies at Cornell University Medical School. She speaks conversational Italian.
Ms. Onofrio is a newly elected Board of Finance member in the Town of Clinton Connecticut as well as an elected member of the Alumni Board of Directors for Southern Connecticut State University (New Haven, CT). She is also a member of both the Connecticut Bar Association and the New York Intellectual Property Bar Association. She previously served as the Village Justice for the Village of Grand View-on-Hudson on Rockland County, New York, for nine years and was a member of the New York State Magistrates Association. She was a Staff Officer in Flotilla 10-10 and Division 10 in Hackensack, New Jersey, of the U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary for thirteen years before transferring to Flotilla 24-08 in Clinton, Connecticut.
Job Titles:
- Partner
- Co - Chair of the Connecticut Chapter of the Licensing Executives Society
- Co - Chair of the Diversity Committee of the Fairfield County Association
- RPJ Partner
Deena R. Merlen is a Partner at the firm. She serves clients at both our New York and Stamford offices and heads the Connecticut practice. Her practice areas include intellectual property, employment and labor law, media and entertainment, general business law, commercial transactions and dispute resolution.
In her employment practice, Ms. Merlen is a trusted "go to" problem solver and counsel to individuals, established name brand companies and startups alike. She has extensive experience representing clients in matters including general counseling, discrimination actions, mediations and dispute resolution, investigations by federal or state agencies, as well as wage and hour claims and other labor law matters. She also advises on and regularly negotiates employment and separation agreements, independent contractor arrangements and other services-related arrangements. Ms. Merlen also counsels clients on employment and business matters in response to a crisis or other unexpected business impact, such as the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting business closures, including continuity plans, employee furloughs, reductions in force and other critical measures.
In her intellectual property practice, Ms. Merlen helps her clients with the development, acquisition and protection of their valuable brands and other vital intellectual property assets. She manages and grows trademark portfolios in the U.S. and internationally; negotiates licensing, assignment, distribution and branding agreements; prosecutes trademark and copyright registrations; enforces intellectual property rights; and provides strategic counsel to safeguard brand platforms and expand the value of her clients' intellectual property assets.
Ms. Merlen's media practice encompasses the development and protection of creative works in the fields of music, film, television, theatre, publishing, literary arts, performing arts, design and technology. She ran her own business in the entertainment industry for over a decade and brings that business experience and acumen to her legal practice.
In addition, Ms. Merlen provides general business counsel and represents clients in company and transactional matters such as partnerships, joint ventures, licensing arrangements, the purchase or sale of businesses, and a wide range of other corporate matters, including company formation, capitalization and governance, compliance and contracts. Representative clients include technology companies, schools and other academic institutions, personal care and beauty companies, fashion and design companies, media, arts and entertainment companies, wholesalers, retailers and more.
Prior to her work with RPJ, Ms. Merlen served as Law Clerk to The Honorable Roger J. Miner of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, after which she joined Debevoise & Plimpton, where she practiced for over five years in the areas of corporate law and intellectual property.
Ms. Merlen is admitted to practice in Connecticut and New York.
Education
Ms. Merlen received a B.A. from Oberlin College (1984) and a J.D. from New York Law School (summa cum laude, 1996), where she ranked first in her class, was an editor of the Law Review and received the Outstanding Editor Award, several American Jurisprudence Awards, the Trustees' Prize and a merit scholarship.
Ms. Merlen currently serves as Co-Chair of the Connecticut chapter of the Licensing Executives Society (USA & Canada), an independent, professional organization that facilitates global IP commerce through education, networking, standards development, and certification. Founded over 50 years ago, LES is a member society of the Licensing Executives Society International, Inc., which has a worldwide membership of licensing and intellectual property professionals across 32 national societies located in more than 90 countries.
Ms. Merlen also serves as Co-Chair of the Diversity Committee of the Fairfield County Association and a member of the Bar Association's Entertainment, Media and Intellectual Property Law Committee, which she co-chaired from 2011-2019 (after founding the Entertainment Law Committee), and is a member of the Employment Law Committee, which she co-chaired from 2015-2018.
Ms. Merlen is a frequent guest speaker and moderator for employment law, intellectual property and entertainment industry panels on a variety of topics.
Ethan Krasnoo is a Partner at the firm. He practices in the areas of complex commercial litigation, arbitration, mediation and dispute resolution, and employment, intellectual property, and entertainment and media. In addition to representing individual clients, he has represented publicly traded and privately held companies, including prominent fashion conglomerates, music publishers, performing arts organizations, insurance companies, hedge funds, asset managers, pharmaceutical companies, nonprofit organizations, law firms and consumer goods companies. His areas of litigation and other dispute resolution have included breach of contract, employment discrimination, sexual harassment, insurance and securities fraud, antitrust, personal injury, First Amendment, malpractice, False Claims Act and other whistleblowing laws, trade secret, false advertising, trademark infringement and dilution, copyright infringement and rate-setting and royalty disputes. He has also advised entertainment and media professionals and non-profits on transactional and employment matters, including negotiations and terminations, and in protecting and expanding their intellectual property assets, and has advised clients across a spectrum of industries on data security.
Mr. Krasnoo has provided pro bono counsel to LGBT asylum seekers, prisoners and struggling artists and has volunteered with The Trevor Project. In 2010, the leading national LGBTQ immigrant rights organization, Immigration Equality, awarded him the Safe Haven Award for his pro bono work in that space. Mr. Krasnoo previously served on the New York City Bar Association Entertainment Law Committee, and has repeatedly been selected as a Super Lawyers New York Metro Rising Star. He was previously a member of the Trademark and Unfair Competition Committee of the New York City Bar Association and is a frequent speaker on trademark and copyright matters.
Frederick R. Fucci acts as Special Counsel for the firm in connection with corporate transactions (M&A, joint ventures, LLC agreements), commercial contracting and infrastructure development and finance matters.
On corporate transactions, Mr. Fucci has led teams of lawyers to the successful closing of over $3 billion of merger and acquisition transactions over the course of his career. He has deep experience in all steps of transaction execution, including structuring letters of intent, organizing due diligence and reporting results, negotiating and drafting stock, asset purchase and merger agreements and bringing deals to completion, either in simultaneous or staggered closings. He is well versed in acquisition techniques and mechanics, such as earn-outs, holdbacks and escrows for liabilities and purchase price adjustment mechanisms, and he is accustomed to working in coordination with in-house counsel and tax attorneys on transaction structures.
Mr. Fucci's infrastructure and project finance experience is in energy (electricity, oil and gas), telecommunications and ports. It encompasses organization of project consortia and companies, project development agreements, offtake (power purchase agreements [PPAs]), land-use, concessions, construction, operations and maintenance (O&A) and fuel supply. He has focused on both big ticket projects, such as utility scale, and on small-scale cogeneration projects, such as combined heat and power or solar PPAs for on-site supply of electric and thermal energy (distributed generation) for industrial and commercial users. He has workedon the acquisition or greenfields development of a number of wind and solar power projects in the last ten years. He is experienced in contract drafting and negotiation of equipment supply agreements, design build and engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contracts.
As part of Mr. Fucci's general transactional experience, he has represented companies in numerous commercial contracts, including sales of goods, supply of commodities and industrial equipment, energy and commodities training, distribution and sales agency agreements and service and consulting contracts.
Mr. Fucci also maintains an independent practice as a neutral arbitrator in domestic and international commercial arbitration cases, either ad hoc or under AAA, ICDR, ICC and LCIA Rules, and in representing parties to disputes being resolved by commercial arbitration or mediation. He is available to apply that expertise to clients of Reavis Page Jump.
Mr. Fucci can do business in several languages. In addition to his native English, he speaks near-native French, having been educated in part in France and lived there for some years. He has represented both U.S. clients in enforcing judgments and arbitral awards in France and French clients in doing business in the U.S. He has also represented investors in projects in several other French-speaking countries, including Morocco and the Ivory Coast. He also speaks fluent Italian and German, having studied and lived in both Italy and Germany. By virtue of having done business in several Latin American countries, he has a strong working knowledge of Spanish and is able to read legal documents in Spanish with full comprehension. He can also read Portuguese.
Mr. Fucci was selected to Super Lawyers for the New York Metro area from 2013 through 2023 and is admitted to practice in New York and New Jersey. He is also qualified as a solicitor of the Bar of England and Wales and is a member of the Paris Bar (avocat au barreau de Paris).
Education
Mr. Fucci received his B.A. in European Studies from Amherst College (cum laude, 1981), his M.A. in International Relations from Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (with distinction, 1987) and his J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center, where he was Lead Articles Editor for the school's publication Law Review: The Tax Lawyer. During his undergraduate course, he spent time abroad studying at the Université de Paris IV/la Sorbonne in Paris, France, and at the Università di Firenze per Stranieri in Florence, Italy. He was awarded the Forris Jewett Moore Fellowship in History and the John Woodruff Simpson Fellowship for Legal Studies.
Mr. Fucci is an active member of several bar associations, including the International Bar Association and the New York City Bar Association, for which he was previously the Chair of the Energy Committee. He is a member of the United States Council for International Business (USCIB) Committee on Arbitration and the Chair of its Transactional Lawyers Subcommittee. He is a guest lecturer of the International Business Transactions course at Fordham Law School and frequently speaks on panels and presents to professional associations.
Job Titles:
- Managing Partner
- Partner
- Reavis Page Jump Managing Partner
- RPJ Partner
Job Titles:
- Counsel
- Member of the American Bar Association
- RPJ Counsel
Jeffrey L. Blankstein is Counsel for the firm. His practice areas include estate and retirement planning, individual taxation, real estate and litigation. Prior to RPJ, he worked in the New York office of an international accounting firm.
Mr. Blankstein is admitted to practice in New York.
Education
Mr. Blankstein earned his B.S. in Accounting from the University of Florida (1983) and his J.D. from New York Law School (1986).
Mr. Blankstein is a member of the American Bar Association, the Trusts and Estates Section of the New York State Bar Association and a former member of the Committee on Trusts, Estates and Surrogates' Courts of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, as well as the Association's Committee on Civil Courts.
Job Titles:
- Business & Legal Affairs Manager
Job Titles:
- Director of Administration
Job Titles:
- Senior Researcher & Legal Analyst
Reavis Page Jump LLP is a law firm founded by a diverse group of accomplished attorneys who formerly practiced with some of the world's largest and most recognized law firms and have realized the benefits-to our clients and ourselves-of operating in a smaller firm setting. The hands-on management and collegial environment at Reavis Page Jump LLP enhance the quality of service provided to our clients, to serve them more efficiently and collaboratively and with an exceptionally high level of attention. We have robust practices in a range of areas, including litigation and dispute resolution, employment and labor, entertainment and media, intellectual property, corporate, real estate and infrastructure, non-profit and education, and trusts and estates matters.