Vinson & Elkins Announces 2025 Class of New Partners and Counsel

The following is a list of the firm’s new partners:

Marisa Antonelli

Commercial Litigation, New York

Marisa’s diverse litigation practice includes commercial disputes, securities litigation, shareholder activism, and corporate governance matters in trial and appellate courts across the country.  Marisa also handles internal and regulatory investigations.

Max Etchemendy

Appellate, Washington, D.C. 

Max is an appellate lawyer with wide-ranging experience, including environmental permitting, energy regulation, commercial disputes, mass torts, copyright, taxation, eminent domain, shareholder activism, online privacy, and constitutional law.

Matt Hoffman

Commercial Litigation, Houston

Matt is a trial lawyer who has litigated a diverse range of commercial disputes in federal and state court and in private arbitration, including business torts and contract disputes, construction disputes, and class actions and multidistrict litigation.

Caroline Kuehn

M&A, Energy Transactions & Projects, Houston

Caroline’s practice focuses on complex asset and entity-level acquisitions and divestitures, joint ventures, commercial agreements and projects across the energy and infrastructure industry, with a focus on the renewables (power, solar, wind, battery storage and landfill gas to power/RNG), midstream and upstream sectors.

Evan Miller

Antitrust, Washington, D.C.

Evan is an antitrust lawyer who focuses on merger reviews by antitrust enforcement agencies, Hart-Scott-Rodino filings, and civil litigation. Evan has handled multiple merger and non-merger investigations and has represented clients as third-party witnesses to merger challenges in federal and administrative court.

Leila Ravi

Project Finance & Development, New York

Leila is a finance attorney who represents investors, developers, lenders (including banks and institutional investors), sponsors and borrowers in various types of domestic and cross-border finance and M&A transactions, with a focus on the development, financing, acquisition, disposition and restructuring of major energy and infrastructure projects.

Jeremy Reichman

Commercial Litigation, Dallas

Jeremy is a commercial litigator with a particular focus on professional liability matters. He represents law firms in high-stakes professional-liability matters, including malpractice claims, disqualification disputes, and attorney disciplinary issues.

Zachary Rider

Finance, Houston

Zach advises lenders, borrowers, private equity sponsors, and alternative capital providers on a wide range of financing transactions, including acquisition and leveraged finance, asset-based lending, reserve-based lending, project and infrastructure finance, private credit and special situations, and distressed debt.

Robert Ritchie

Commercial Litigation, Dallas

Robert defends corporations and their officers and directors from lawsuits brought by their stockholders. His principal areas of practice are in securities fraud class action litigation, litigation arising from stockholder activism campaigns, and M&A litigation.

Winston Skinner

Energy Regulation, Austin

Winston helps clients navigate Texas regulations involving energy infrastructure. He represents developers, lenders, and operators regarding electric generation, transmission and distribution infrastructure, and he advises various participants in the ERCOT market. He also represents developers and operators of natural gas, oil, carbon dioxide, and water pipelines in Texas.

Jon Solorzano

Corporate Governance, ESG, Los Angeles

Jon’s practice focuses on advising public and private companies and their boards of directors and executive teams on corporate governance, sustainability strategies and reporting, shareholder activism, risk management, greenwashing mitigation, securities law and M&A.

The following is a list of the firm’s new counsel:

Desi Baca

Shareholder Activism, New York

Desi is a securities and corporate governance lawyer who has significant experience representing clients, including in more than 85 activism campaigns over the past eight years. Desi routinely advises companies in competitive proxy solicitations, withhold campaigns, merger contests, consent solicitations, settlement negotiations, and unsolicited bids.

Alexander Baker

M&A and Private Equity, Dallas

Alexander works with a variety of public and private companies as well as private equity and venture capital investors and their portfolio companies in connection with a broad range of strategic transactions, including mergers, acquisitions, dispositions, leveraged buyouts, joint ventures, minority and growth equity investments and other general corporate matters.

Maya Bobbitt

Finance, New York

Maya’s practice focuses on representing financial institutions, corporate lenders, private equity sponsors and borrowers in a wide range of financing arrangements. She has assisted clients in connection with syndicated credit facilities, acquisition financings, and cross-border transactions in various industries.

Virginia DeBeer

Commercial Litigation, Dallas

Virginia’s principal areas of practice are securities litigation, shareholder litigation, and shareholder activism. She has experience across a wide range of industries litigating federal securities claims, breach of fiduciary duty claims, and general commercial disputes at the trial and appellate levels in state and federal courts.

Andrew DeVore

Energy Regulation, Washington, D.C.

Andrew represents companies before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). He has advised clients on issues related to the development of gas-fired and renewable generation, wholesale electricity markets, authorizations for the acquisition and divestiture of FERC-jurisdictional assets, tax equity investments, and a host of related issues under the Federal Power Act, Natural Gas Act, Interstate Commerce Act, the Public Utility Holding Company Act, and the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act.

Jeremy Griffin

M&A and Private Equity, New York

Jeremy advises a variety of public and private companies as well as private equity funds and other financial sponsors in connection with corporate matters and strategic transactions, including mergers and acquisitions, divestitures, leveraged buyouts, joint ventures and preferred equity financings.

Todd Hartis

M&A and Private Equity, Houston

Todd advises private equity firms, other financial sponsors, portfolio companies and a variety of public and private businesses in connection with mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures and a wide range of other strategic transactions. His work spans a variety of industries, including traditional energy, renewables, infrastructure and technology.

Demi Hueth

Aviation Finance, New York

Demi’s practice includes asset-backed and structured financings, restructurings and joint ventures.

Sang Lee

M&A and Private Equity, Dallas

Sang advises public and private companies and private equity firms in connection with a broad range of strategic transactions, including mergers and acquisitions, divestitures, leveraged buyouts, joint ventures, minority and growth equity investments and other general corporate matters.

Alex Lewis

Capital Markets and M&A, Houston

Alex’s principal area of practice is corporate finance and securities law, including securities offerings, private equity, mergers and acquisitions and general corporate representation.

Lauren Meyers

Tax, Dallas

Lauren advises partnerships, corporations, and individuals on federal tax planning matters. Her practice also focuses on the federal income tax aspects of domestic and international transactions, including mergers and acquisitions, restructurings, capital markets transactions, and fund formation.

Meghan Natenson

Commercial Litigation, San Francisco

Meghan’s practice focuses on commercial litigation, including federal securities claims, shareholder activism, class actions, data privacy, breaches of fiduciary duty, and other commercial disputes.

Brent Schoradt

Tax Equity, Energy Transactions & Projects, Denver

Brent represents financial institutions, project sponsors, and developers in the financing, development, and sale of large-scale wind and solar projects, with a focus on tax-equity financings.

Matt Struble

Restructuring & Reorganization, Dallas

Matt’s practice includes all aspects of restructuring and reorganization work, including the representation of debtors, lenders, creditors, and other stakeholders in chapter 11 and out-of-court restructurings. His experience includes chapter 11 reorganization proceedings, bankruptcy litigation, distressed asset acquisitions and divestitures, and corporate workout and restructuring transactions.

Jeff Swigart

Intellectual Property, Tokyo

Jeff resides full-time in Tokyo and is the Registered Foreign Attorney (Gaikokuho-Jimu-Bengoshi) for Vinson & Elkins’ Tokyo office. Jeff counsels and represents companies in all types of intellectual property matters, including patents, copyrights, trademarks, and trade secrets.

Steven Wilson

M&A, Energy Transactions & Projects, London

Steven is a London-based M&A lawyer with experience in project development and regulatory advisory work in the energy sector, including upstream oil and gas, liquefied natural gas (LNG), petrochemical facilities, power and energy-related infrastructure.

Curt Wimberly

Tax, Washington, D.C. 

Curt’s practice focuses on the U.S. federal income tax aspects of domestic and international transactions. He advises public and private companies and private equity funds and their portfolio companies on a wide range of transactions, including mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, divestitures, public offerings, and other domestic and international transactions.

Michael Zarcaro

M&A, Energy Transactions & Projects, Houston

Michael’s principal areas of practice are mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, commercial arrangements and other transactions in the energy and infrastructure industries.