A business lawyer with a primary focus on middle market transactions, Jeff has extensive experience in mergers and acquisitions, finance and commercial transactions, corporate law, bank regulation, and legal opinions.
Overview
A business lawyer with a primary focus on middle market transactions, Jeff has extensive experience in mergers and acquisitions, finance and commercial transactions, corporate law, bank regulation, and legal opinions.
Practice Areas
About
Jeff works closely with business leaders on their most important legal matters. He advises boards of directors and management on business combinations, capital and strategic matters, and finance transactions. Recent industry experience includes banking and financial services, industrial products, technology, quick-serve restaurants, aerospace, telecommunications, healthcare, real estate, and professional services firms.
With particular experience advising financial institutions on corporate and regulatory matters, he frequently represents banks across the southeastern United States on mergers and acquisitions, shareholder matters, and regulatory issues. Jeff also represents lenders and borrowers in finance transactions and loan workouts, often leading substantial transactions or working with other law firms as local counsel.
Jeff is a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation, and he has been recognized for his work in publications such as Best Lawyers in America and Super Lawyers. He serves as one of three Mississippi gubernatorial appointments as a commissioner on the Uniform Laws Commission, and he serves on the boards of directors of Operation Shoestring and the Butler Snow Foundation.
Experience
- Numerous acquisitions and sales of community banks across the southeastern United States
- Sale of a closely held multi-state consumer lender to a publicly traded company ($100+ million)
- Acquisitions of industrial distribution companies by a publicly traded company
- Sale of a Mississippi subsidiary by a Fortune 500 company
- Acquisitions of 50+ quick-serve restaurants across the southeastern United States by a privately held franchisee
- Sale of a closely held healthcare consulting firm to a large life sciences company
- Sale of a closely held fiberoptic company to a publicly traded company ($100+ million)
- Sale of an aerospace company to a private equity firm ($200+ million)
- Sale of a privately held software company to a publicly traded company ($400+ million)
- Sale of a multi-state healthcare company to a private equity firm ($300+ million)
- Acquisition of private engineering firms by a closely held engineering firm
- Sales of commercial loans by regional banks, totaling over 70 individual transactions ($800+ million)
- Lender’s counsel for regional and community banks in commercial loans including shipbuilding, agriculture, healthcare, and real estate
- Borrower’s counsel in commercial loans including healthcare and financial services
Distinctions
- Uniform Laws Commission, Mississippi Commissioner, 2022-present
- Study Committee on Use of Tokens or Other Similar Products in Real Property Transactions
- American Bar Foundation, Fellow
- Best Lawyers in America®
- Business Organizations (including LLCs and Partnerships), 2016-2025
- Commercial Finance Law, 2021-2025
- Lawyer of the Year, Commercial Finance Law (Jackson, MS), 2023
- Super Lawyers®
- Mid-South Rising Stars, Banking, 2013, 2019-2021
- Mississippi Uniform Commercial Code Study Group, 2012
Bar Admissions
- Mississippi, 2012
- Alabama, 2006
Education
- Tulane University, J.D., cum laude, 2006
- Managing Editor, Tulane Journal of International and Comparative Law
- University of Mississippi, B.A., History, 2003
Papers, Presentations & Publications
- Speaker, “The iPhone and the Great Recession Turn 10,” Alabama Bankers Association CEO, Executive Management, and Directors Conference, August 2017.
- Author, “Directors’ Responsibilities: A Brief Refresher,” Alabama Bankers Association Board Briefs, March/April 2016.
- Speaker, “M&A Roadblocks,” Alabama Bankers Association CEO, Executive Management, and Directors Conference, August 2015.
- Speaker, "Buy, Sell, or Survive," Mississippi and Tennessee Bankers Associations CEO/Executive Management Conference, October 2012.
- Quoted, "Mississippi bankers brace for change as Basel III's New World Order nears," Mississippi Business Journal, September 2012.
- Co-Author, "Advice for Bank Directors: The Buck Stops Here," Banking Traditions, 2009.
- Author, "Fine Tuning Securities Fraud: What a Fight Over Cable Boxes Means for the Defense Bar," 24 Ala. Def. Law. Ass’n. J. 25, 2008.
- Author, "Mending Fences: The Real Purpose of the American Jobs Creation Act of 2004," 13 Tul. J. Int’l & Comp. L. 421, 2005.
Civic Involvement
- Operation Shoestring, Board of Directors, 2017-present
- Board President (2020-2021), Executive Committee (2020-2023)
- Butler Snow Foundation, Board of Directors, 2020-present
- Rotaract Club of Birmingham, 2008-2011