PHILADELPHIA, March 15, 2024 — Cozen O'Connor announced the promotion of 23 attorneys to member: Luciana Aquino, Marla Benedek, Tiffany Bustamante, Matt Coin, Amy Doig, Nicole Marie Gill, Brett Greving, Taranae Hashemi, Heather Hill, Elena Hillman, Amorie Hummel, Aaron Koury, Douglas Mackin, Angel Marti III, Ben Migliorino, Seth Nirenberg, Rangi Perera, Rachel Scall, Natasha Shaikh, Erin Szulewski, Curt Trisko, Max Weiss, and Hongling Zou.
“Member promotions are always an exciting time for a firm,” said Executive Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Michael J. Heller. “This is a group of terrific lawyers across many offices and practice areas, and we look forward to following their achievements as they help Cozen O’Connor with our continued success.”
Aquino focuses her practice on commercial litigation and coverage matters and has experience representing corporate clients and national insurers engaged in the hospitality, construction, transportation, and retail industries. She has experience managing all stages of complex litigation matters, including class actions, and has represented corporations, retailers, business operators, and insurance companies against various personal injury, property, and contract claims.
Benedek focuses her practice on bankruptcy and litigation. She represents Chapter 7 trustees, Chapter 11 debtors, creditors, creditors' committees, and contract counterparties in Chapter 11 and Chapter 7 proceedings and bankruptcy litigation. She also serves as Delaware counsel in commercial litigation before the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware and Delaware Superior Court.
Bustamante focuses her practice on complex insurance coverage matters, from pre-suit consultation to the litigation and appeals process in both federal and state courts. She regularly assists insurers by providing them with coverage and excess exposure opinions, monitoring potential excess exposure issues, conducting complex coverage analysis, and handling multiple claimant issues.
Coin focuses his practice on commercial litigation. He has experience in a wide variety of areas including contract disputes, partnership and other closely-held business disputes, product liability, premises liability, insurance, securities, and other complex torts and business disputes. Coin has experience representing clients in a number of industries and prides himself on his ability to learn a client’s business and understand the business implications of the cases he handles. He has represented restaurants, trucking companies, contractors and others in the construction industry, banks and other financial services companies, health care companies, and manufacturers and distributors of products.
Doig represents individuals and entities in litigated matters often concerning disputes such as breach of contract, privacy, construction defects, construction management, and design professionals' work. She has experience with both individual and class action litigation in state and federal court. She also practices in the areas of transportation & logistics and insurance coverage.
Chair and Managing Member of the firm’s eDiscovery practice, Gill works with attorneys and clients firmwide to develop efficient and effective discovery management strategies tailored to the case at hand. Leveraging advanced technologies and analytics, she manages complex and high-profile eDiscovery projects and routinely navigates data and privacy protection laws across many jurisdictions, both domestic and foreign.
Greving has more than ten years of employment law experience, providing practical legal solutions for businesses in a heavily regulated employment environment and stout defense to employment lawsuits. Greving represents employers of all sizes in state and federal court litigation, handling class actions and individual matters with a particular focus on wage and hour class actions, Private Attorney General Act and Fair Labor Standards Act Collective actions, and trade secret lawsuits.
Hashemi is a defense litigator focused on commercial liability, construction defect, professional liability, labor law, and premises liability litigation. She has experience drafting and arguing motions, leading and defending depositions, acting as monitoring trial counsel at client request, and representing clients in mediation, settlement conferences, and meet and confers. She has argued on dispositive issues before the Appellate Division, First Department.
Hill focuses her practice on complex commercial litigation, including contract disputes, construction, product liability, consumer fraud, and business torts. She has experience representing businesses and individuals in a wide range of industries and subject areas at both the state and federal levels. Hill spent six years as a prosecutor at the Delaware County District Attorney’s Office.
Hillman is an experienced employment law counselor and litigator on matters relating to medical leave, employment contracts, OSHA, discrimination, harassment, wrongful termination, and traditional labor law issues. She partners with clients to develop policies and processes that work for both the company and its employees and to devise effective litigation game plans that address each client’s unique business goals.
Hummel’s practice focuses on the representation of clients in environmental and energy matters. She represents public and private clients in environmental litigation, environmental regulatory counseling, and environmental transactional work. Her work on behalf of clients has involved assisting with regulatory matters before the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities, New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, and Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, in addition to appellate litigation matters before the New Jersey Superior Court Appellate Division and the Superior Court of Pennsylvania on behalf of utilities and developers.
Koury is experienced at handling a high volume of subrogation cases, including automobile and property/large loss claims. He has handled all aspects of a subrogation claim, from investigation and pre-suit evaluation to filing suit and exchanging discovery to negotiating a settlement or taking the case to trial.
Mackin concentrates his practice on construction law, counseling owners, developers, contractors, and subcontractors in all phases of a construction project, from contract negotiation through to completion. He routinely assists clients with claims relating to construction or design defects, change order disputes, delay/acceleration issues, mechanics' liens, bonds, and indemnity. He has experience in negotiation, mediation, and arbitration settings, including successfully prosecuting downstream claims for defective work and upstream claims for delay/acceleration claims.
Marti focuses his practice on medical malpractice defense, representing health care practitioners and hospitals against professional liability claims. Prior to joining the firm, Marti initially clerked and then practiced at a Los Angeles law firm. While there he drafted and reviewed pleadings, made court appearances, took depositions, and conducted client and expert witness meetings. He also clerked at the Los Angeles County District Attorney's office.
Migliorino is an experienced litigator who focuses his practice on prosecuting large property damage claims involving fires, floods, mechanical system failures, sprinkler system failures, product defects, construction defects, and other tort and contract claims. Migliorino is licensed to practice in Colorado, North Dakota, and South Dakota and has litigated cases in state and federal court in more than a dozen states across the West and Midwest.
Nirenberg concentrates his practice on product liability defense, premises liability, and insurance coverage. He has experience conducting pre-discovery fact investigation, performing legal research, conducting and defending depositions of fact and expert witnesses, creating defense strategies, preparing pleadings, discovery motions, summary judgment motions, motions in limine, discovery demands, and discovery responses, conferring with claims professionals, negotiating with plaintiff's counsel to settle cases, attending mediations and preparing appellate and respondent briefs.
Perera primarily focuses her practice on representing corporate clients and insurance carriers in cases involving personal injury, construction defect, professional liability, insurance coverage, and employment-related claims. She has a successful track record of providing high-quality legal counsel from the initial claim to mediation, arbitration, and trial.
Scall focuses her practice on New York City zoning and land use. She has experience preparing and presenting applications at the NYC Department of City Planning and Board of Standards and Appeals, community boards, the City Council, and other city agencies. She regularly interprets and applies the NYC Zoning Resolution and CEQR Technical Manual and has negotiated development rights transactions, construction access agreements, and easements.
Shaikh has experience managing all aspects of the administration of high net worth trusts, estates, and guardianships. She is a skilled negotiator and prides herself on her ability to deliver positive results by implementing tailored litigation strategies for each of her clients. With a master of laws in taxation, Shaikh aids her clients by reviewing tax returns, corporate documents, and accounting/financial statements, conducting preliminary financial analysis, and collaborating with experts and financial accountants.
Szulewski provides legal advice to developers, lenders, buyers, and sellers on a range of complex real estate matters such as title insurance, survey review, financing, environmental liability, and ADA compliance. She advises clients on a variety of zoning and land use matters, and navigates local government entities and private developers through the redevelopment process from plan negotiation to project completion.
Weiss counsels clients on a broad range of real estate matters, including acquisitions, dispositions, financing, leasing, development, and zoning. He was an associate with the firm from 2016 through 2019 after participating in Cozen O'Connor's summer associate program in 2015. Prior to rejoining the firm, Weiss served as the chief of staff and the director of legislation and policy in the Office of Philadelphia City Councilmember Jamie R. Gauthier. In these roles, he advised the council member on policy, legislative, community, and land use matters.
Trisko represents corporate, individual, and nonprofit clients in the acquisition, sale, leasing, and development of commercial and residential real estate. His clients have included developers, owners of office portfolios, financial institutions, REITs, government entities, and homeowners. In addition to his transactional work, Trisko is experienced in real estate trial and appellate practice in both state and federal courts. He is a Minnesota State Bar Association certified Real Property Specialist. First and foremost, he is a problem-solver who is able to adapt to the demands, challenges, and peculiarities of the matters encountered by his clients.
Zou focuses her practice on the preparation and prosecution of patent applications in technologies including chemical, polymer sciences, pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and nanotechnology. She also assists in strategic procurement and management of client’s IP assets, including conducting patentability, freedom-to-operate, and due diligence analyses, as well as preparing invalidity and non-infringement opinions.