The Legal 500

Within Immigration, tier 4

Arnall Golden Gregory LLP now has offices in both Atlanta and Washington DC. The firm’s immigration practice focuses on the representation of foreign owned corporations in the US, both immigrant and non-immigrant visa processing for businesses and families (temporary work visas and green cards), EB-5 Investor Visa Processing, the immigration consequences of mergers and acquisitions, and immigration reform and control act compliance. The firm’s immigration group collectively speaks Cantonese Chinese, English, French, German, Gujarati, Hebrew, Hindi, Korean, Mandarin, Russian and Spanish, so is able to offer effective multilingual service in support of its immigration law expertise. The firm’s global client list includes Heidelberg, a solutions provider for the print media industry with nearly 25,000 employees in 170 countries, and Porsche Cars North America, the exclusive importer, marketer and distributor of Porsche automobiles for the United States. Teri Simmons and of counsel Stephen Pocalyko are highly regarded.

Within Telecoms and broadcast: regulatory, Arnall Golden Gregory LLP is a third tier firm,

Arnall Golden Gregory LLP’s practice, led by Don Hackney in Atlanta, provides regulatory assistance to telecommunications clients at federal, state and local levels. Work includes transactional support and stand-alone regulatory mandates, notably assisting clients to obtain CLEC certification in numerous states. The team has significant experience of cell site permit-related issues and has achieved a successful resolution in the majority of these cases. IP and technology practice head Scott Taylor is praised for his ‘responsiveness and excellent work’ and has successfully represented numerous clients in land use and zoning matters relating to the location and construction of telecommunications facilities.

Within Telecoms and broadcast: transactional, Arnall Golden Gregory LLP is a third tier firm,

Arnall Golden Gregory LLP’s transactional telecoms practice is evenly split between wireless and wire line clients. In addition to M&A transactions, the team handles financing transactions including IPOs, high-yield notes, venture capital investments and senior secured loans as well as handling equipment purchase transactions and carrier agreements. Don Hackney in Atlanta and his team are involved in a multi-year project representing a national communications carrier in connection with negotiating and obtaining numerous cable franchises with city and county governments, and represent the largest independent incumbent local exchange carrier (ILEC) in a large Midwestern state in connection with building an advanced telecom network to connect regional hospitals and other rural healthcare facilities, and provide them with state-of-the-art data and video networks. The team handles international capital markets and M&A work in the telecoms sector. High-profile clients include BT, T-Mobile, Telecom Wireless and Verizon.

Within M&A: middle-market (sub-$500m), tier 5

Atlanta-based legal practice Arnall Golden Gregory LLP is especially focused on the middle-market. The firm advises a wide array of Atlanta’s top 150 public companies and fast-tech 50 companies, as well as Georgia’s top 50 private companies. Highlights included advising Lynk Systems, during its acquisition by the Royal Bank of Scotland. Practice leaders Adam Skorecki and Jonathan Golden are principal contacts. Skorecki has extensive experience in the acquisition, sale and financing of nursing homes and other related types of healthcare facilities. Donald Hackney chairs the firm’s telecommunications practice team. Hackney has represented Contel in its acquisitions, divestitures and other strategic transactions.