NEW YORK – March 30, 2015 – Four attorneys from the international law firm Greenberg Traurig, LLP, have been named to the 2015 Law360 “Rising Stars” list. The list features 145 attorneys under 40, selected from a record 1,200 submissions, representing 75 law firms and 29 practice areas. The winners were selected based on their career accomplishments in their respective practice areas, according to the legal newswire. For two of the attorneys chosen from Greenberg Traurig, 2015 marks multiple years of selection.
Robert J. Herrington, selected in the Class Action category, has been named a Law360 Rising Star for three consecutive years, landing the honor in 2013 and 2014 in addition to 2015. In 2013, he was the only attorney in the country named to two different sections (Class Action and Products Liability) of Law360’s "Rising Stars Under 40." Herrington serves as co-chair of Greenberg Traurig’s Products Liability & Mass Torts Practice. His practice is focused on defending consumer products companies in class actions, including in the areas of false advertising, unfair competition, product defect, and privacy. In furtherance of his commitment to raise awareness of class action litigation risk as a best-selling author, Herrington is currently working on another book for the ABA regarding class action strategy and practice. Herrington continues to be one of the youngest national practice chairs at any major law firm, and he has demonstrated leadership and accomplished extraordinary success while at Greenberg Traurig. Since January 2012, Herrington has prevailed in 15 class action lawsuits, winning dismissals or defeating class certification. Currently, he is defending several major clients in putative class action and product liability lawsuits. His practice remains on the cutting edge of class action litigation, spanning the most pressing issues of concern to corporations today such as TCPA, privacy, labeling and advertising, and product defects. Herrington balances his busy class actions practices with his commitment to pro bono work. The Arizona Supreme Court recently appointed him and his team as lead counsel to handle the representation of an Arizona death row inmate in post-conviction capital representation proceedings in connection with the ABA’s Death Penalty Representation Project. Herrington is leading a team of more than a dozen Greenberg Traurig attorneys working on the matter.
Samantha Ahuja, selected in Hospitality, has been named to the list for a second consecutive year, landing the honor in 2014 in addition to 2015. Ahuja, a shareholder in the Washington, D.C. office of Greenberg Traurig, focuses her practice on hotel acquisitions, operations, development and finance, hotel management agreements, licensing agreements, and commercial real estate acquisitions and sales. Ahuja advises domestic and international clients on the acquisition and disposition of hotels and other commercial property, hotel management and operations, franchising, licensing and branding, restaurant management agreements, and casino agreements. Often serving as the lead chair in critical and impact deals within the firm, Ahuja is recognized as an expert in matters involving hotel management and financing documents, franchise and license agreements, and unique issues involving the acquisition and disposition of hospitality-related assets. Recently, she first-chaired and successfully led the acquisition of a $250 million portfolio involving 20 hotels across the country for a leading investment fund client. Another important part of Ahuja’s practice is her experience in general corporate law and emerging markets, where she focuses on advising startup and existing businesses on the structuring, governance, and operation of corporations, partnerships, and limited liability corporations. From representing production studios, to an India outsourcing supplier firm to real estate-based franchises, Ahuja has wide-ranging experience and has worked with a broad scope of businesses in this regard. In addition to the real estate and hospitality aspect of her legal practice, Ahuja focuses a great deal of effort on projects involving HOPE VI developments in the Washington, D.C. area involving bond syndication, PILOT financing, and various HUD components in the building and development of affordable housing. Her focus remains on preserving affordable housing in areas that are undergoing revitalization in the Washington D.C. area or otherwise creating opportunities for home ownership in low income communities. She works closely on a pro-bono basis with multiple affordable housing cooperatives in D.C., where she focuses on finding and structuring financing needed in order to preserve and protect the long-term housing options for the low income and minorities in the area.
Making their debut on the list, from Greenberg Traurig, were Lori Chang in Privacy and Daniel Smulian in Product Liability.
Lori Chang is a shareholder and commercial litigator at the Greenberg Traurig Los Angeles office. She specializes in complex IP and Internet litigation, including secondary copyright and trademark-related issues, and privacy and security related litigation and counseling, including suits under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), matters involving data security breaches, and matters related to the Stored Communications Act. Chang has counseled clients on a variety of privacy and security issues, including responding to complex security breaches, managing collection and use of personal information, compliance with data breach notification laws and privacy regulations, and designing privacy policies and frameworks for mobile applications and devices that have global privacy implications. In addition, she has counseled clients on eDiscovery matters that have raised privacy concerns, including in connection with the Stored Communications Act. Her recent work in privacy-related litigation focuses on defending companies in various TCPA consumer class actions; Chang also has significant expertise in litigating claims that fall under the statutory immunity provided by the Communications Decency Act (“CDA”). In prior years, Chang has represented clients in highly publicized CAN-SPAM suits. Apart from her work in the privacy and data security area, Chang has broad experience in complex commercial litigation. Chang regularly presents on privacy-related issues, including on topics pertaining to “Bring Your Own Device” and the Electronic Communications Privacy Act. Throughout her career at Greenberg Traurig, Chang has been active in the firm’s diversity initiative. She is actively involved in a diversity fellowship program co-sponsored by Greenberg Traurig’s Los Angeles office, which recruits diverse candidates from law schools in partnership with in-house counsel and other local law firms. Since 2011, Chang has also been a board member of the Asian Pacific American Dispute Resolution Center, a nonprofit organization that services the Los Angeles area by teaching and implementing conflict resolution in a variety of contexts, such as business disputes, landlord-tenant disputes, divorce mediation, and peer mediation in local schools.
Daniel Smulian was elevated to shareholder in February 2015 and is in the New York office of Greenberg Traurig. Although he now practices in New York, Smulian started practicing law in Greenberg Traurig’s Atlanta office, which he joined in 2005 after graduating from Emory University School of Law. He immediately became a member of the firm’s Pharmaceutical, Medical Device & Health Care Practice. Smulian has become a young leader of one of the firm’s higher-profile practices. Nowhere have Smulian’s talents been more on display than in his representation of a client in connection with its pelvic mesh litigation. In 2014, Smulian managed some of the most active aspects of the litigation. For example, early in the year, the District Court ordered the parties to complete case-specific fact and expert discovery in 200 cases, half of which were to be selected by each party. Perhaps most critically, Smulian was tapped to lead the client’s appeal in the first bellwether case tried in the MDL. Previously, shortly after Smulian moved from Atlanta to New York in 2007, he was selected to work on a tragic case pending in state court in Stamford, Connecticut. The plaintiff alleged that the conduct of a sales representative contradicted and nullified the FDA-approved labeling for the pacemaker of a patient who experienced a cardiac arrest and remained in a persistent vegetative state. The jury returned a verdict for the client and the plaintiff appealed to the Connecticut Supreme Court. Even though he was only a junior associate, Smulian was put in charge of the appeal. The Connecticut Supreme Court subsequently affirmed the verdict in the client’s favor. Since then, he has helped achieve many victories on behalf of clients and his writing skills have prompted his colleagues to request his help even on cases to which he was not initially assigned.