People & Practices: April 18, 2022

Best & Flanagan announces the addition of two attorneys, Michael T. Hatting and Olivia J. Leyrer, to its commercial lending and real estate practice group.

Hatting joins Best & Flanagan as a partner. In his practice, Hatting helps real estate developers, owners, investors and lenders buy, sell, develop, finance and lease all types of commercial and residential real estate projects. He provides business law advice related to entity formation, structure and governance for corporate clients, and he regularly advises on commercial real estate acquisitions and dispositions, project development, joint venture financing, formation of real estate investment funds, property management and leasing.

Prior to joining Best & Flanagan, Hatting was a partner with Stinson LLP. He previously served as the executive vice president and general counsel to a private real estate development company where he helped form and manage a real estate investment fund focused on redressing distressed properties. Hatting is a graduate of the University of Iowa College of Law and Macalester College.

Leyrer joins Best & Flanagan as an associate in the Real Estate and Municipal Law practice groups. Prior to joining Best & Flanagan, Leyrer advised both city governments and private developers on complex real estate and development issues. Part of her practice also includes eminent domain and condemnation proceedings and private property litigation. Leyrer is a graduate of the University of Minnesota Law School.

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Faegre Drinker has announced that partner Jim Park and counsel Allison Seeley have joined the firm in the finance & restructuring practice in Minneapolis. Park and Seeley come to Faegre Drinker from a large international law firm, and Park was formerly with Faegre & Benson from 2000 to 2006.

Park advises clients on all their corporate trust needs using a dynamic blend of more than 20 years of lead in-house counsel and law firm experience across the corporate trust platform. He has guided his corporate trust clients through a wide range of front-end transactional, default, litigation, bankruptcy and operational issues. Park particularly focuses on structured finance transactions and matters within corporate trust, including residential mortgage-backed securities, asset-backed securities, commercial mortgage-backed securities, collateralized loan and collateralized debt obligations, loan agency matters and document custody.

Seeley focuses her practice on counseling financial institutions on corporate trust transactions with a concentration on structured finance. Her clients benefit from her in-house and transactional management experience at two large financial institutions, which lets her provide a broad blend of business understanding and client focus, along with legal acumen. Seeley represents corporate trust clients on front-end transactions in their roles as indenture trustee, owner trustee, paying agent, calculation agent, securities intermediary, account bank, bailee and custodian. She has wide-ranging experience advising on complex agreements, including trust and agency, custodial and related agreements.

Park earned his bachelor’s degree, magna cum laude, from Concordia College and his Juris Doctor, cum laude, from the University of Minnesota Law School. Seeley earned her bachelor’s degree from Luther College and her Juris Doctor from the William Mitchell College of Law.

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Faegre Drinker announces that managing director of professional development Dana Gray has been appointed to the National Association for Law Placement’s (NALP) Board of Directors. She will serve as one of the organization’s four at-large directors for 2022–2023.

According to NALP, the new slate of officers and directors “represents the best of NALP” and has “earned significant professional credentials.” NALP added, “We are excited about the creativity and energy these newly slated NALP board members will bring to their roles.”

Gray leads Faegre Drinker’s efforts to develop, engage and retain attorneys and consultants. She oversees the development of programs to progress the firm’s talent through practice skills development, customized coaching, performance management and understanding the business of operating a law firm. Her law firm operations experience includes positions as professional development manager and recruiting manager at the firm.

NALP is an association of over 2,500 legal career professionals that advises law students, attorneys, law offices and law schools in North America and beyond.

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