Sidley Elects Partnership Class of 29 and Counsel Class of 15 Across Europe and U.S.

Sidley is pleased to announce the names of its 29 newly-elected partners and 15 newly promoted counsel listed below by office and area of practice. These attorneys will become partners and counsel at Sidley effective January 1, 2026. 

“This is an exceptional group of lawyers that have been elected to partner and promoted to counsel,” said Yvette Ostolaza, Chair of Sidley’s Management Committee. “Each of them has demonstrated the attributes that are necessary to practice at the highest levels of our profession. Whether representing clients in the courtroom, leading significant transactions, or advising them in the boardroom, each of them have earned the trust and respect of our partnership and our valued clients. Congratulations on this extraordinary accomplishment during an exciting time in the legal profession.” 

“This newly promoted class of highly regarded partners and counsel indicates our sustained growth as an elite firm,” said Brian Fahrney, Chair of Sidley’s Executive Committee. “We continue to foster the growth of talented lawyers who meet the needs of their clients day in and day out. Thank you for your commitment to Sidley, and we celebrate your success.”

The new Sidley partners are as follows:

Century City
Shayona Schiely, Global Finance, focuses her practice on debt finance, representing both private equity sponsors and their portfolio companies, public and private companies, and lenders in connection with debt financing. She also has significant experience in both in-court and out-of-court restructuring matters, including complex liability management and other capital structure transactions.

Jonathan M. Westreich, Tax, represents public and private companies and investment funds in public and private mergers, equity and asset acquisitions and dispositions, tax-free reorganizations, and internal restructurings, with a focus on sports, entertainment, and media. In addition, he works on transactions involving equity and mortgage REITs, including representing issuers and underwriters in capital markets transactions, and other real estate finance and joint venture transactions.

Chicago
Anika Hermann Bargfrede, M&A focuses her practice on the representation of buyers and sellers in public and private mergers and acquisitions, as well as the advising of numerous publicly traded corporations on a wide range of matters, with an emphasis on federal securities laws and corporate governance. She also has experience advising publicly traded corporations in connection with shareholder activism, proxy contests, and rights plans, and regularly represents boards of directors in connection with special committee assignments.

Katie LaVoy, SEC and Corporate Governance, advises on matters of corporate governance, SEC disclosure requirements, and executive compensation. Her practice includes board and committee governance, leadership and policies, composition and structure, best practices and fiduciary duties, board evaluations, shareholder engagement, executive and director compensation, and disclosure and compliance with corporate and securities laws, regulations, and listing rules, including “beyond compliance” disclosure in proxy statements. 

Abigail B. Molitor, Commercial Litigation and Disputes, focuses her practice on a range of litigation and regulatory matters, often involving complex financial, accounting, and securities issues. She has substantial experience representing accounting and professional services firms in litigation and regulatory matters before the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, and the U.S. Department of Justice. 

Takayuki Ono, White Collar Defense and Investigations, advises companies, boards, and senior executives in internal and government investigations, enforcement matters, and complex cross-border litigation. His work includes inquiries before the U.S. Department of Justice, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and other federal and state authorities, as well as civil disputes in courts around the country. He also advises clients on the effective and thoughtful use of artificial intelligence to support investigations and compliance efforts.

John White, Insurance, advises leading insurance companies and  private equity firms on their most significant transactions, with a focus on M&A and reinsurance as well as sidecar structures and other investment vehicles. He has advised on a broad range of transactions across the United States, Bermuda, Asia, and Europe. 

Caroline A. Wong, Securities and Shareholder Litigation, represents companies and their directors and officers in complex, high-stakes litigation, with a focus on securities and shareholder matters, ERISA class actions, and related investigations. She is frequently sought after for her experience as a legal writer and oral advocate, having led the strategy for more than 80 briefs on critical motions and appeals. Clients rely on her ability to distill complex legal issues into actionable strategies, and to drive matters toward efficient and favorable resolution.

Dallas
Jeri Leigh Miller, Restructuring, focuses on advising both debtor and creditor clients through complex Chapter 11 restructurings, out-of-court reorganizations, and contested business litigations related thereto. She has counseled clients across a broad range of industries, including retail, life sciences, financial services, media, energy, and technology.

London
Florian N. Kamp, Private Equity, advises leading private equity firms and their portfolio companies, focusing on complex cross-border transactions, including M&A, take-privates, hybrid capital, minority investments, divestitures, carve-outs, co-investments, and strategic joint ventures. He has advised on a broad range of transactions across Europe, including the UK, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Italy, France, Sweden, Greece, Poland, Luxembourg, and Switzerland, as well as in Brazil and the U.S. 

Jonathan Lafferty, Commercial Litigation and Disputes, focuses on complex, high-value litigation and arbitration and other dispute resolution, often with a cross-border or international element. His experience extends across a broad range of commercial disputes, including share sale and shareholder agreements (especially warranty disputes and where fraud is alleged, enforcement of security, company directors’ duties and shareholder rights, pharmaceutical and technology licenses, international sale and purchase agreements, and contentious sanctions issues. 

Azeem Sulemanji, Global Finance, works across a variety of structured finance, securitization, and structured lending transactions, with a particular focus on European collateralized loan obligation (CLO) deals. He also advises on the related UK/EU regulatory framework, focusing on the EU risk retention regime as it applies to both EU and U.S. securitization transactions. In addition to his transactional work in structured finance, he also has experience advising on derivatives transactions, including ISDA master agreements, master confirmations, and portfolio total return and credit default swaps.

Los Angeles
Caleb J. Bowers, Environmental, Health, and Safety, focuses his practice on environmental regulatory and litigation matters and enforcement defense, with particular emphasis on e-commerce, industrial businesses, ground transportation and logistics, and infrastructure development. He advises clients on environmental compliance obligations and defending against government enforcement and citizen suits, and on environmental requirements for development projects, especially air, water, and wetlands permitting. 

Alexandria V. Ruiz, Commercial Litigation and Disputes, focuses on handling complex business disputes and defending class actions and consumer fraud suits. Alexandria’s practice spans all stages of litigation, from initial fact investigation and drafting pleadings, through discovery and motion practice, to trial and post-trial work. She has significant experience in both state and federal courts, and in arbitration, obtaining successful outcomes at trials and arbitration hearings.

Munich
Thomas Komanek, Private Equity, advises on all aspects of business and corporate law, with a particular focus on complex national and cross-border private equity and M&A transactions, as well as emerging companies and venture capital. He represents private equity funds, strategic investors, and domestic and international corporate clients in leveraged buyouts, management buyouts, management incentive plans, debt and equity restructurings, and distressed investments. Additionally, he advises venture capital funds and corporate venture capital clients on their investments.

New York
Dustin R. Anderson, Tax, focuses primarily in the areas of federal corporate and partnership taxation. He is regularly involved in tax matters affecting publicly traded and privately held equity and mortgage real estate investment trusts. He also advises clients on the structuring of alternative investments and the formation of alternative investment vehicles, including hedge funds, private equity funds, and real estate funds, and works extensively with regulated investment companies, including open-end funds and exchange-traded funds. 

Rachel Fridhandler, M&A, covers a broad range of corporate and transactional work, representing public companies, private equity, sovereign wealth, and pension funds, on a variety of complex transactions, including mergers and acquisitions, spinoffs, controlling and minority investments, venture capital financing, growth equity investments, GP stakes deals, restructurings, and corporate and board governance. 

MK (Mee Kyung) Han, Private Equity, focuses her practice on representing private equity sponsors and
strategic investors in domestic and cross-border transactions and investments, including mergers and acquisitions, leveraged buyouts, carveouts, joint ventures, minority investments, recapitalizations, and restructuring transactions. She has experience in a wide range of industries with a focus on the healthcare and industrials sectors. She also advises clients on general corporate and governance matters.

Emily A. Hunter, Private Equity, focuses on representation of private equity sponsors, their portfolio companies, as well as public and private companies, in connection with complex transactions including mergers, acquisitions, dispositions, financings and general corporate matters. She has extensive experience in leveraged buyouts, take-privates, carve-outs and distressed investments. Representative industries include asset and wealth management, financial services, professional services, consumer products, healthcare and technology.

Luke Maiman, Global Finance, focuses his practice on representing underwriters, issuers, asset managers, and investors in broadly syndicated and middle-market collateralized loan obligations (CLOs), debt fund financings, and other structured loan facilities. He advises clients on CLO warehouses (rated and unrated), new issue public and private market transactions, risk retention facilities and refinancings, resets, and other restructurings of CLOs. He also has experience with regulatory matters, including the Volcker Rule, U.S. risk retention rules, and federal securities laws.

Jon Muenz, Commercial Litigation and Disputes, advises on bankruptcy, insolvency, and other distressed situations. He has represented debtors, official committees, secured and unsecured creditors, distressed investors, and other parties in litigated matters arising out of numerous high-profile restructurings. He also has substantial experience in state and federal courts and various arbitral forums litigating disputes concerning contractual breaches, mergers and acquisitions, corporate governance, and class and derivative actions.

Michael T. Sweeney, Global Finance, focuses his practice on public and private capital market transactions, including commercial mortgage-backed securitization (CMBS) and commercial real estate collateralized loan obligation (CRE CLO) transactions. He has experience representing issuers, collateral managers, loan sellers, placement agents and underwriters. He has also represented fund managers in the formation of debt funds and has particular experience working with funds focusing on asset-backed collateral classes.

Alena Q. Thomas, Global Finance, focuses her practice on leveraged finance transactions, representing private equity sponsors and their portfolio companies, public and private companies, and lenders. She has extensive experience across acquisition financings, cross-border transactions, debt restructurings, and complex liability management over a range of industries and financing structures, including first-lien, second-lien, unitranche, asset-based, recurring-revenue, back-leverage, and high-yield.

Patrick Venter, Restructuring, focuses his practice on advising large private and public companies, creditors, and investors in highly complex restructuring transactions. He has represented debtors across a variety of industries, including healthcare, retail, media, technology, energy, and financial services.

San Francisco
Lauren C. Freeman, Antitrust and Competition, helps clients navigate complex regulatory environments, representing clients in government investigations and regulatory enforcement actions. Her government investigations experience includes representing clients in regulatory proceedings and enforcement actions before agencies such as the U.S. Department of Justice, the Federal Trade Commission, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, and the Food and Drug Administration. 

Washington, D.C.
Aaron M. Applebaum, Global Arbitration, Trade and Advocacy, focuses on advising companies on all aspects of U.S. customs law, including compliance counseling and planning, responding to government inquiries and enforcement actions, and customs-related litigation. He advises companies on substantive matters related to the importation of merchandise into the United States, including customs valuation, tariff classification, country of origin determinations and marking, free trade agreement and preference program qualification, and forced labor compliance and enforcement issues under the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) and 19 U.S.C. §1307.

Ameneh Bordi, Restructuring, focuses her practice on overseeing the execution of complex, high-pressure restructurings. She advises clients in all aspects of Chapter 11 reorganizations and out-of-court restructurings. Her experience includes top-tier complex Chapter 11 cases for both company and creditor-side representations.

Stanley J. Boris, Banking, Payments and Fintech, advises financial institutions on a variety of regulatory, public policy and transactional matters. His experience includes counseling depository institutions, payment networks, processors, and technology companies on structuring their payment offerings, such as prepaid card programs, person-to-person payment services and digital payment products, as well as with respect to licensing and ongoing compliance obligations.

Erin N. Kauffman, Securities Enforcement and Regulatory, advises some of the world’s largest asset managers and broker-dealers on the development and expansion of their securities lending programs, as well as on related regulatory and compliance issues. She also counsels leading industry trade associations on significant regulatory initiatives and regulator engagement, including on securities lending and short selling matters.

 

The following lawyers will be counsel effective January 1, 2026.

Chicago
John M. Ekblad, Investment Funds, focuses his practice on advising registered funds, with a particular emphasis on open-end funds, closed-end funds, business development companies, and exchange-traded funds. He regularly works with investment advisers in connection with ongoing regulatory compliance with securities laws and regularly counsels boards of directors and investment advisers on a variety of legal, business, risk, compliance, and transactional matters arising under the Investment Company Act of 1940 and the Investment Advisers Act of 1940.

Stephen W. McInerney, Privacy and Cybersecurity, focuses his practice on matters related to cybersecurity, national security, data privacy, and related technology and regulatory legal compliance matters. He regularly advises clients in preparing for, and leading investigations in response to, sophisticated cybersecurity incidents, including ransomware, malware, and software and device vulnerabilities. Clients regularly seek his guidance in the context of transactional matters, including conducting diligence and negotiations related to significant cybersecurity, data privacy, and artificial intelligence risks. 

Hannah Posen, Environmental, Health, and Safety, focuses her practice on defending and advising clients on a wide range of environmental matters, including civil and criminal enforcement actions, regulatory compliance, civil litigation, and environmental aspects of transactions. She is particularly focused on matters arising under the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act, and she has represented and advised various clients in state and federal enforcement proceedings involving alleged violations relating to air emissions and effluent discharges.

Dallas
Daniel F. Burkhart, Global Finance, focuses his practice on various secured and unsecured leveraged finance transactions and debt restructurings. He regularly represents public and private company borrowers, private equity sponsors and direct lenders on acquisition financings, asset-based financings, cash-flow-based financings and subscriptions, and NAV and hybrid financings. He also has significant experience in the financing and strategic elements of in-court and out-of-court restructurings, including complex liability management, workouts, and debtor-in-possession financing transactions.

Geneva
Michail Dekastros, Global Arbitration, Trade and Advocacy, represents a broad range of clients in international disputes with a particular focus on international commercial and investment treaty arbitration. He has acted as counsel before international arbitral tribunals in commercial disputes involving a variety of different sectors and activities, including medical devices, development and commercialization agreements in life sciences, energy projects, construction projects, and partnership agreements. 

London
Taniel Akay, Capital Markets, advises both issuers and underwriters on international corporate finance transactions, liability management transactions, and U.S. securities regulation. With a particular focus on high-yield debt capital markets transactions, he has substantial experience with complex cross-border financing arrangements and leveraged buyouts. He has represented a wide variety of public and private issuer clients across industries, including manufacturing, retail, energy, and healthcare, as well as numerous lenders and underwriters on financing transactions.

Los Angeles
Victoria A. Anglin, Investment Funds, focuses on the complexities of Advisers Act compliance. With a deep understanding of the regulatory landscape, she provides strategic guidance to investment advisers, hedge funds, private equity firms, and other financial institutions on navigating the intricacies of SEC regulations. She helps clients effectively manage compliance challenges, mitigate risks, and achieve operational efficiency within the bounds of federal securities laws.

Alexandria Daugherty, White Collar Defense and Investigations, focuses on representing individual and corporate clients in connection with investigations and enforcement actions by government agencies. She has extensive experience with multi-faceted, high-stakes matters that involve the U.S. Department of Justice, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, and other federal agencies and state attorneys general. She has represented clients in a variety of sectors, including those in the automotive, technology, telecommunications, retail, financial, healthcare, and accounting industries.

Jonathan H. Koh, Real Estate, focuses on a broad range of real estate transactions, including purchase and sale transactions, mortgage and mezzanine loan originations and restructurings, joint ventures, and leasing. These matters involve a wide variety of asset types, including hotel and hospitality, restaurants and retail, office, healthcare, multi-family, industrial, and mixed-use projects. 

Miami
Axel Miranda, M&A, represents clients on domestic and cross-border mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, restructurings, private offerings, and private equity and venture capital fund formation and investments. He has extensive experience in general corporate law and corporate governance, advising on a range of complex cross-border transactions involving countries in North, Central, and South America, Europe, and Asia. He also represents domestic and multinational clients on investments in, and acquisitions of, major professional sports teams in the U.S. and abroad.

New York
Peter J. Mardian, Securities and Shareholder Litigation, concentrates his practice in the areas of antitrust and securities litigation, representing clients across industries in class and direct actions alleging price fixing and securities fraud, as well as in matters concerning various contract and tort claims. He also counsels clients regarding commercial foreclosures and related real estate disputes.

Alexandros Roussos, Global Finance, represents issuers and underwriters in SEC-registered and private securitizations, with a focus on commercial mortgage-backed (CMBS) transactions and consumer and commercial asset-backed (ABS) securitizations. He also counsels large corporate sellers, purchasers, and servicers on consumer asset portfolio acquisitions.

Washington, D.C.
Keturah A. Brown, Energy and Infrastructure, focuses on a variety of regulatory, compliance, and transactional matters involving the natural gas markets and U.S. wholesale electricity. She advises energy companies and financial institutions on regulatory requirements under the Natural Gas Act and Federal Power Act. She also advises energy traders and marketers on physical and financial wholesale power and gas transactions, renewable energy credits, mergers and asset acquisition approvals, and regional energy market rules and tariff requirements. 

D’Juan B. Jones, Securities Enforcement and Regulatory, represents individual and corporate clients in investigations, enforcement actions, and litigations brought by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, the U.S. Department of Justice, state attorneys general, and other law enforcement and regulatory authorities. In addition to representing clients in investigations and litigated enforcement actions, he has significant experience conducting sensitive internal investigations for financial services firms and public companies in response to whistleblower complaints or other allegations of misconduct. 

Miriam Carroll Silvestri, Antitrust and Competition, focuses her practice on counseling clients regarding mergers, acquisitions, joint ventures, government investigations and litigation, and issues involving pricing and distribution policies, licensing, and information exchanges. She has experience preparing competition filings under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act and working with the Federal Trade Commission and U.S. Department of Justice. She represents clients across a wide range of industries, including software and technology, medical devices, pharmaceuticals, healthcare providers, retail, insurance, and manufacturing.

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