Moore & Van Allen PLLC is pleased to announce that the following nine attorneys have been elected as the Firm’s newest members: Benjamin P. Fryer, Jeffrey R. Gray, Patrick B. Horne, Matthew R. Mitchell, Felix C. Pelzer, Benjamin M. Pickett, William (Bill) D. Rust, Brennan E. Sheedy and Melinda (Mindy) L. Vervais. Their new designation went into effect on January 1.
“On behalf of Moore & Van Allen’s Management Committee, I am proud to recognize these accomplished lawyers as the Firm’s newest members,” stated Moore & Van Allen Chairman Ernie Reigel. “Congratulations to each on this well-deserved achievement.”
New Member Ben Fryer practices on Moore & Van Allen’s Charlotte, North Carolina office Litigation and Employment & Labor teams. An experienced negotiator and litigator, Fryer maintains a particular focus on employment and labor law, with an emphasis on helping clients protect trade secrets and enforce non-compete agreements and other types of restrictive covenants. Additionally, he is experienced in state and federal wage and hour issues, discrimination and retaliation claims under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, and a broad range of issues involving union organizing, collective bargaining, and unfair labor practice charges under the National Labor Relations Act.
New Member Jeff Gray practices on Moore & Van Allen’s Charlotte, North Carolina office Intellectual Property team. A trained mechanical engineer with an MBA and corporate design engineering experience, Gray’s background enables him to provide intellectual property services for a wide variety of industries, including mechanical, software, business methods, material science, and chemical, among others. He focuses his practice on obtaining patent rights domestically and abroad, providing non-infringement investigations and invalidity investigations, conducting due diligence investigations, performing trademark clearance searches and filing trademark applications for company and product branding, and negotiating and drafting license agreements with intellectual property components. Gray also helps clients develop strategic business plans for their intellectual property.
New Member Patrick Horne practices on Moore & Van Allen’s Charlotte, North Carolina office Intellectual Property team. Horne maintains a particular focus on patent preparation and prosecution both nationally and internationally. He has an electrical engineering degree and particular technical experience with electronics, computer software/firmware, business methods, medical devices, and mechanical arts, among others. He also has significant experience performing legal investigations such as infringement, validity, and freedom to operate, and counsels clients with regard to trademark strategy. Horne’s practice further includes transactional matters and intellectual property litigation. He has assisted clients that range in size from individuals and start-up companies to government entities and Fortune 500 companies. Currently, he represents clients in the banking, retail, software, medical device, and aerospace industries.
New Member Matt Mitchell practices on Moore & Van Allen’s Charlotte, North Carolina office Financial Services team. He focuses his practice primarily on the representation of financial institutions in connection with the negotiation and documentation of secured and unsecured senior debt and public finance transactions.
New Member Felix Pelzer practices on Moore & Van Allen’s Charleston, South Carolina office Estate & Wealth Planning and Federal & International Taxation teams. His primary areas of emphasis include business law, taxation and estate planning. He is a frequent speaker regarding both taxation and estate planning topics, and is a member of the Charleston Tax Council, Charleston Tax Roundtable, and the Kiwanis Club.
New Member Ben Pickett practices on Moore & Van Allen’s Charlotte, North Carolina office Corporate and Transportation & Logistics teams. Pickett’s practice consists of a wide variety of transactional fields, with a focus on commercial contracts and transportation and logistics matters. He has significant experience assisting clients with general corporate, operational and commercial contract needs, including drafting and negotiating large national and international equipment purchases and critical vendor agreements, industrial gas agreements, international joint ventures, and formation and structure of various entities. Pickett has developed an extensive practice in the realm of transportation law for Fortune 500 companies. Additionally, he regularly advises trucking companies on the various legal issues they face as motor carriers.
New Member Bill Rust practices on Moore & Van Allen’s Charleston, South Carolina office Corporate and Health Care teams. Rust focuses his practice on business, commercial real estate, mergers and acquisitions, and health care-related matters. The business and transactional facet of his practice includes representing clients in merger and acquisition transactions, joint ventures, bond offerings, securities, and general corporate and contractual matters. He negotiates commercial contracts on behalf of local and regional businesses, and represents private companies belonging to regulated industries to ensure compliance with South Carolina laws and regulations. The health care facet of his practice includes representing hospital systems in physician practice acquisitions, joint ventures, and matters related to physician employment and recruitment. Rust provides regulatory compliance advice to hospital systems and physician practices, and advises health care clients regarding Medicare, Medicaid and third-party payer coverage and reimbursement issues, patient-care and risk-management matters, tax-exempt status issues, and medical-staff bylaws.
New Member Brennan Sheedy practices on Moore & Van Allen’s Charlotte, North Carolina office Financial Services team. Sheedy’s practice focuses on commercial finance lending arrangements. He represents lead arrangers, underwriters and agent banks in syndicated credit facilities used to finance leveraged buyouts, recapitalizations, acquisitions and general working capital needs.
New Member Mindy Vervais practices on Moore & Van Allen’s Charlotte, North Carolina office Litigation and Energy teams. Vervais focuses her practice on energy regulation and general commercial litigation. She specifically provides regulatory, business and litigation services to regulated infrastructure service industries such as electric, natural gas, water and sewer utilities, hydroelectric facilities and telecommunication companies. Vervais has represented clients before multiple state public service commissions as well as the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and provides FERC compliance assistance and training. In her commercial litigation practice, Vervais represents clients in state and federal courts throughout North Carolina and in numerous other jurisdictions, in matters concerning issues such as contract and employment disputes, trade secrets, commercial real estate, equipment leasing and collection matters. Vervais has also made pro bono matters a very important part of her practice, managing and serving on the Firm’s Domestic Violence Pro Bono Project, which helps victims of domestic violence to obtain year-long protective orders.
About Moore & Van Allen PLLC
Moore & Van Allen PLLC is one of the largest law firms in the Southeast, with nearly 300 attorneys and offices in Charlotte and Research Triangle, North Carolina, and Charleston, South Carolina. The attorneys at Moore & Van Allen provide sophisticated legal services within their nationally recognized Litigation, Finance, Corporate and Intellectual Property law practices for international banks and manufacturers, energy leaders, and growing healthcare and technology companies. The Firm is comprised of 21 primary industry and practice groups. Moore & Van Allen is the only Charlotte-based law firm identified in the prestigious “Am Law 200” list. U.S. News & World Report and Best Lawyers recognized Moore & Van Allen in their 2015 “Best Law Firms” rankings, both regionally and nationally.