WASHINGTON, DC - January 1, 2011 — Arent Fox LLP, a full-service law firm with offices in Washington, DC, New York City and Los Angeles, has announced promotions of eight lawyers at the firm.

“These individuals represent a richly diverse set of legal skills, all of which will contribute significantly to our financial growth in the years to come. In addition, they collectively possess a number of very impressive client relationships. Finally, they are simply great people with whom to work and each will reinforce the traditions for which this firm prides itself,” said Managing Partner Matt Clark.

The following attorneys were promoted to partner, effective January 1, 2011:

The following attorney was promoted to the position of counsel, effective January 1, 2011:

Eric Baxter is a partner in the firm’s litigation department. He has experience litigating a broad range of complex commercial matters, including cases arising in intellectual property, contract, employment, environmental, and regulatory contexts. In addition to his trial work, Eric has significant experience with appellate litigation in both state and federal courts. In recent years he has handled appeals to the DC Court of Appeals and to the US Court of Appeals for the Second, Third, Fourth, Eighth, Ninth, and DC Circuits. Eric clerked for the Honorable Robert H. Cleland of the US District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan.

Eric maintains an interest in legal issues that directly impact families and children and actively participates in related pro bono matters. During his time at the firm he has handled adoption proceedings for seven neglected children in the custody of the DC Child and Family Services Agency. In 2007, the firm awarded Eric with its annual Albert E. Arent Pro Bono Award for this work. Eric has also represented churches of various denominations and worked on a variety of matters in support of religious liberty.

Amy Donnelly is a partner in the firm’s corporate group. She has a broad-based transactional practice with a focus on mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, private equity investments and other contracting matters such as license agreements, equity incentive arrangements, financing documents and general corporate counseling. Amy has counseled clients in a wide variety of industries, including sports and entertainment, defense, aerospace, technology, systems integration, real estate development, banking, medical practice groups, pharmaceuticals, communications and media. She has represented clients ranging from multi-billion dollar companies, to middle market companies, start-ups and non-profit organizations.

Amy serves on the board of directors of Starlight Children’s Foundation, Mid-Atlantic, an organization that brings together experts from pediatric health care, technology and entertainment to create programs that help brighten the lives of seriously ill children and their families. Last year Starlight partnered with over 150 hospitals and treatments centers and provided ongoing support to more than 216,000 children and family members.

Rachel Hold-Weiss is a partner in the firm’s health care and life sciences practice in New York. She represents a variety of nonprofit and for-profit health care providers, including hospices, home health agencies, skilled nursing facilities, general hospitals, long-term care hospitals, assisted living facilities, continuing care retirement communities and physician practices.

Specifically, Rachel focuses on representing and advising clients undergoing federal and state audits and investigations, certificate of need, facility and medical professional licensing matters, HIPAA, Medicare and Medicaid survey and reimbursement matters, fraud and abuse issues, including Anti-Kickback and False Claims, and the corporate practice of medicine. Rachel also conducts compliance audits and assists clients with the development and implementation of compliance programs.

Rachel is a member of the Regulatory Committee of the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization, and she performs pro bono work for the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization and the Hospice and Palliative Care Association of New York State. Prior to joining Arent Fox, Rachel worked as a physician assistant in both hospital and outpatient clinical settings.

Ambassador Pierre-Richard Prosper resides in the firm’s Los Angeles office. His practice centers on international government relations and trade, mediation and internal assessments and investigations on behalf of government entities and companies. Ambassador Prosper also spends a significant amount of time in the firm's Washington, DC office.

Ambassador Prosper is regularly called upon to handle complex and sensitive matters. Using his high-level diplomatic experience and legal skills, Ambassador Prosper helps clients navigate and troubleshoot the political and regulatory landscapes of foreign markets. Ambassador Prosper has been appointed by the United States District Court to mediate complex legal and business disputes between parties and has investigated and recommended solutions on matters of public interest. He advises foreign governments on improving their legal capacity and assists on commercial matters.

Prior to joining Arent Fox, Ambassador Prosper was the US Ambassador-at-Large in charge of the Secretary of State’s Office of War Crimes Issues. He was appointed in 2001 by President George W. Bush and, after being unanimously confirmed by the US Senate, served until October 2005. From 1999 to 2001, Ambassador Prosper worked in the US State Department, Office of the Secretary of State, where he served as a special counsel and policy adviser on war crimes issues.

From 1996 to late 1998, Ambassador Prosper was a war crimes prosecutor for the UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. While working and living in Rwanda for nearly three years in the aftermath of the genocide, he was appointed lead trial attorney and prosecuted Prosecutor vs. Jean-Paul Akayesu, the first-ever case of genocide under the 1948 Genocide Convention. He won additional convictions for crimes against humanity and broke new ground in international law by convincing the UN Tribunal, for the first time, to recognize rape as an act of genocide and a crime against humanity.

Ambassador Prosper recently made national headlines by successfully negotiating with the government of Iran to secure the release of an American citizen held for more than two years in a Tehran prison.

Alec P. Rosenberg is a partner in the firm’s intellectual property group. His practice encompasses a broad range of scenarios involving the creation, exploitation, and enforcement of trademarks, copyrights, rights of publicity, and trade secrets.

Alec began his career by serving as a law clerk for Judge Robert E. Payne on the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia and then practiced as a general commercial litigator for several years. Since shifting his focus to specialize in IP law, Alec’s practice has remained heavily dispute-oriented, and he has extensive experience counseling clients in connection with pre-litigation strategies and litigating trademark and copyright cases in the federal courts and the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board. In addition, he regularly advises clients with respect to internal best practices, complex clearance, prosecution and maintenance matters, and contract negotiations relating to their intellectual property. Alec has deep knowledge of brand and content-oriented issues relating to the Internet and domain names, but he represents clients in a wide variety of industries, including those involving software, fashion, footwear, consumer electronics, food and wine, accounting, travel, education, real estate/construction, health care, and entertainment.

Alec is a member of the Famous and Well Known Marks Subcommittee of the International Trademark Association (INTA), on which he leads a task force devoted to tracking and evaluating US case law and trends arising under the federal trademark dilution statute. He is also active in the Copyright Society of the USA.

In 2002, Alec began representing an inmate at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola in post-conviction proceedings challenging his conviction for first-degree murder. In 2005, Alec and his colleagues secured the dismissal of the client’s death sentence.

Jeffrey N. Rothleder is a partner in the financial restructuring and bankruptcy practice group at Arent Fox. Jeff’s practice focuses on financial restructuring and workout proceedings on behalf of financially distressed companies or their creditors, including representation of indenture trustees, creditors’ committees, investors and purchasers in in-court and out-of-court restructurings. Jeff represents a wide variety of clients in the enforcement of the entire spectrum of creditors’ rights involving public or private, secured, unsecured, and taxable and tax-exempt debt through his work with indenture trustees, lenders, individual creditors and official committees in Chapter 11 cases. Jeff also has experience representing debtors, including the restructuring of large companies through the Chapter 11 process or conducting the orderly liquidating and comprehensive asset sales for a diverse group of companies.

Before joining Arent Fox, Jeffrey was a judicial law clerk for the Honorable Duncan W. Keir of the US Bankruptcy Court for the District of Maryland.

Dawn Russell is a partner in the firm’s intellectual property practice group. Dawn is a registered US patent attorney, and she represents the intellectual property needs of domestic and international clients, focusing on medical devices, pharmaceuticals, chemicals, biotechnology, and bioinformatics. She has extensive experience providing opinions and counseling relating to pharmaceutical products, medical devices, and consumer products. She is also engaged in the drafting and review of agreements involving intellectual property rights, and due diligence investigations relating to the acquisition of intellectual property. Dawn’s significant patent drafting and prosecution experience includes a wide variety of technologies, including medical devices, diagnostics, pharmaceuticals, nutraceuticals, chemicals, transgenic organisms, biofuels/green energy, consumer products, foods, and cosmetics. Dawn provides client counseling in litigation relating to patent infringement matters.

Dawn is also actively involved in pro bono matters, focusing on providing intellectual property advice to non-profit organizations. Her pro bono work includes review of agreements on behalf of the organizations, and assisting with outreach programs designed to educate the public on intellectual property issues.

Charles B. Ferguson is counsel in the firm’s real estate group. His practice involves a wide variety of real estate transactions, including the acquisition, financing, and development of real property, retail and office leasing, along with related corporate matters. Charles’ experience includes representing clients in the acquisition of a large-scale waterfront property in Annapolis, Maryland under the Base Realignment and Closures Act and obtaining subsequent construction and development financing; the acquisition of headquarters facilities for two separate nonprofit organizations in downtown Washington, DC; and supplying mezzanine financing for a major downtown redevelopment project in Atlanta.

Charles interned for both Justice Hugh Thompson of the Georgia Supreme Court and the Honorable John Warner of the United States Senate.