Carlton Fields Opens New York Office

New York, NY – October 1, 2012 – Carlton Fields is pleased to announce that it is opening an office in New York City today with the following attorneys previously associated with Rosner & Napierala, LLP:

Carlton Fields’ President and CEO Gary L. Sasso said, “We are delighted to announce the opening of this office. It was time. Many of our national clients are based in or near New York, and our attorneys from our offices in Florida and Atlanta travel there often to work with these clients. So the new office is a natural step for us. Brian, Natalie, and their colleagues at Rosner & Napierala are a great fit, and they will be a wonderful addition to our firm. We are very pleased to have them on board.”

Brian Rosner, who will serve as managing shareholder for the office said, “Natalie and I are very excited about this opportunity to grow and extend the practice we built in our boutique law firm. Though small, from inception our firm has serviced major national clients and handled high-stakes litigation and corporate matters around the country. We have always been aware that a larger firm would offer a better platform to attract and service clients. Despite several overtures, we had been reluctant to combine with a larger firm until we met Gary and the other shareholders of Carlton Fields. They offer a unique value proposition — the bench strength of a larger firm with the collegiality and devotion to personal client service of a smaller group.”

Napierala added, “Carlton Fields was the right choice for us because we share a strong commitment to exemplary client service, and we felt a natural affinity to the attorneys and staff at Carlton Fields from the outset of our discussions. We are pleased to join the firm and to offer our clients the full platform of legal services that Carlton Fields provides.”

The acquisition continues a busy and successful year for Carlton Fields. Last year the firm had yet another record year, and since 2006, the last full year prior to the recession, Carlton Fields has added more than 40 lawyers and has grown revenues by 47 percent.

Carlton Fields’ new office is located near Wall Street at 26 Broadway, 22nd Floor in New York, New York, in the iconic Standard Oil building, which was designated as a New York City Landmark in 1995. This is Carlton Fields’ eighth office.

The building sits on land once owned by Alexander Hamilton and later acquired and developed by America’s first billionaire, John D. Rockefeller, for his Standard Oil Trust Company headquarters. The names of the Standard Oil founders and original board members are inscribed on the lobby ceiling. The building, ensconced in marble and limestone, is crowned with a pyramid modeled after one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus. In the 1920s, when the building was the tallest on the tip of Manhattan, the illuminated pyramid acted as a beacon for ships entering the harbor.

Additional Bio Details:

Brian Rosner is a member of the firm’s Business Litigation and Trade Regulation practice group. He is a trial and appellate lawyer whose practice includes corporate litigation, securities law, and criminal defense. He represents senior executives in complex business disputes, SEC securities fraud investigations and enforcement actions, and securities fraud lawsuits brought by class action plaintiffs. In addition, Federal District Courts in New York have appointed Rosner to serve as a receiver in several CFTC cases locating and recovering receivership assets, designing asset allocation plans, and distributing assets to defrauded victims.

He began his career with the Office of Robert M. Morgenthau, District Attorney of New York County. He served as a senior trial attorney in the Frauds Bureau and as a supervising attorney in the Appeals Bureau, where he drafted and argued more than 100 criminal appeals.

Rosner’s admissions include: New York State, the U.S. Supreme Court, U.S. Courts of Appeal for the Second and Sixth Circuits, and U.S. District Courts for the Southern, Eastern, Northern, and Western Districts of New York.

He is an active member of the New York City Bar Association, having served on its Judiciary Committee, and as the chairperson of the First Department’s Complaint Mediation Panel. He is also a member of the board of directors of the New Rochelle Fund for Educational Excellence.

Rosner is a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar and received his J.D. from Columbia University, where he was editor-in-chief of the Columbia Journal of Law & Social Problems. He received his B.A., magna cum laude, from Columbia College and the University of London (London School of Economics and Political Science). He authored the book, Swindle: Abuse of Trust, which chronicles several of the cases he prosecuted as an assistant district attorney.

Natalie A. Napierala is a shareholder and a member of the firm’s Business Litigation and Trade Regulation practice group. She has earned graduate degrees in both business and law, and provides her clients with well-rounded advice sensitive to their business objectives.

She represents directors and officers in high-profile suits alleging securities fraud and other forms of corporate malfeasance. Her representation has included former high-level executives of Fortune 500 companies in SEC and criminal investigations, and class action securities fraud lawsuits. She also represents individuals in FINRA investigations of industry professionals.

She provides guidance to publicly-traded corporations, senior executive officers, and boards of directors on the fiduciary duties of directors and officers, executive compensation, threatened and actual litigation, and D&O insurance coverage issues.

Napierala also acts as counsel to the receiver in several receiverships created under the Commodity Exchange Act and venued in the U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York.

Napierala co-authored a white paper on executive compensation by the Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. Student Leadership and Ethics Board (Columbia Business School). She also recently lectured at Columbia Business School on "Disclosing Foreign Bank Accounts to the IRS: A Legal Perspective." She is a member of the advisory board of A.R.T., which provides programs to engage children/adults in refugee communities in various arts drawn from their own cultures, and she is a Launch Member of the Women's Initiative, Center for Global Affairs at New York University.

Napierala received her J.D. from Case Western Reserve University School of Law, her M.B.A. from Columbia Business School, and her B.A., magna cum laude, from Canisius College. Currently, she is working toward her LL.M. in Securities & Financial Regulation from Georgetown University Law Center.

Heather J. Haase, senior counsel and a member of the firm’s Corporate, Securities, and Tax practice group, advises public and private companies on corporate governance matters, securities filings, and general corporate law, and has worked on SEC and class action securities fraud litigation matters. She also represents federal equity receivers in Commodity Exchange Act receiverships, and has been instrumental in recouping assets for defrauded victims. Currently, she counsels and represents individuals in matters involving the nondisclosure of offshore bank accounts.

Haase’s admissions include: New York State, Texas, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, and the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

Haase is an active member of the New York City Bar Association and currently serves as chair of the Committee on Drugs and the Law. An advocate for harm reduction and drug policy reform on the international level, she acts as a legal advisor to Harm Reduction Coalition in New York City. She has written articles and lectured on the topics of harm reduction and international drug law and advocacy at programs held at New York University and The New School.

She received her J.D. from Wake Forest University School of Law and her B.A. from the University of North Texas.

Elizabeth Luciano, senior counsel and a member of the firm’s Corporate, Securities, and Tax practice group, advises major domestic and international financial institutions on corporate matters and has significant experience with global securities and cash custody, repurchase, and securities lending matters. She has structured, negotiated, and reviewed sophisticated corporate financing and securities transactions. She also counsels clients on indemnification, lending, confidentiality, employment, corporate-action, and agency agreements.

She has presented training sessions at major broker dealer and banking institutions on global custody arrangements, participation loans, Internet banking agreements, and issues affecting domestic offices of foreign banks.

Luciano’s admissions include: New York State, New Jersey, and the U.S. District Courts for the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York.

She received her J.D. from New York University School of Law and her B.A. from New York University.

Madelyn Spatt Shulman, of counsel and a member of the firm’s Corporate, Securities, and Tax practice group, advises and represents corporations, limited liability companies, partnerships, and their members, directors, officers and shareholders in diverse corporate, tax, and securities matters. She provides securities and corporate advice to public and private entity clients, and works with regulators and lenders to restructure companies encountering economic problems or damaged by corporate malfeasance. Shulman also assists clients in resolving complex “business divorce” matters. She advises clients obtaining intellectual property protection, including trademark registration and Internet domain protection, and she represents clients in a variety of disputed matters, including trademark disputes, securities arbitration, and employee and shareholder matters.

Shulman’s admissions include: New York State, Arizona, and the U.S. District Courts for the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York.

She formerly chaired the Corporate, Securities, and Banking Committee of the Nassau County Bar Association and she is an active member of the American Bar Association Business Law Section for which she lectures on topics related to business divorce transactions and representation of middle market companies in major transactions.

Shulman received her LL.M. in Taxation from New York University School of Law, her J.D., cum laude, from New York University Law School, her M.A. from Stanford University, and her B.A., cum laude, from the University of Michigan.

Ildiko Szollosi, senior counsel and a member of the firm’s Corporate, Securities, and Tax practice group, focuses on corporate governance and control, securities law, and general corporate and contract matters. Szollosi has represented private and public corporations, limited liability companies, bondholder committees, and not-for-profit organizations in a wide variety of corporate matters, including domestic and cross-border mergers and acquisitions, strategic investments, out-of-court restructuring transactions, recapitalizations, and related corporate and securities matters.

Szollosi is admitted to practice in New York State.

She received her LL.M. in corporate law from New York University School of Law, where she was a Hauser Global Scholar. She also received a LL.M. in International Business Law from Central European University and a J.D., summa cum laude, from Eotvos Lorand University in Budapest.

About Carlton Fields: Carlton Fields is a leading provider of legal and consultative services to a broad spectrum of business clients ranging from multi-national Fortune 100 companies to start-ups. With locations in major business centers in the Southeast and New York, Carlton Fields offers to its clients more than 300 attorneys and government consultants.