Jessica W. Hammons

Willkie represented Capstreet in its acquisition of TOPS Field Services, LLC, a nationwide provider of turbine maintenance and outage services. TOPS, an acronym for Turbine Overhaul Performance Specialists, an independent, multi-OEM service provider delivering full-spectrum turbine and generator maintenance capabilities for major independent power producers (IPPs), utilities, LNG and other industrial companies. Capstreet is a Houston-based private equity firm that invests in lower middle market business service companies. The Willkie team was led by partners Rosalind Kruse and Aaron Savella and included associates Sam Neece and Noor Halloum.

Feb 13

1 min

New York, NY (July 15, 2025) --- Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP today announced that three leading private equity transactional lawyers, Jesse Betts, Jessica Hammons and Nathan Meredith have joined the Firm as partners in the Corporate & Financial Services Department. They are based in the Firm’s Dallas office. Jesse Betts is a highly regarded corporate attorney who advises private equity sponsors, management teams and high-net-worth individuals through the entire investment cycle. He represents clients across multiple industries, including upstream and midstream oil and gas, oilfield water and waste disposal, manufacturing, logistics, medical device and technology. His practice focuses on private equity investment, mergers, acquisitions and divestitures, joint ventures, internal restructurings, compliance with securities law, securities offerings, venture capital investments and other general corporate governance matters. A well-known dealmaker in the Texas market, Jessica Hammons guides clients through corporate and securities transactions with an emphasis in upstream and midstream energy, manufacturing and financial services. She has extensive experience with private equity investments, public and private mergers, acquisitions and divestitures, public and private securities offerings, SEC reporting and corporate governance, and other general corporate and contract matters. Nathan Meredith is a top-ranked transactional attorney with a practice focusing on mergers and acquisitions and private equity investments, particularly acquisitions and divestitures of oil and gas assets and companies and private equity funding arrangements. He also represents publicly and privately held companies and private equity funds across various industries, including energy, infrastructure, manufacturing and technology, in connection with joint ventures, portfolio company investments, commercial transactions and general corporate matters. Holt Foster, Managing Partner of the Dallas office, commented: “The addition of Jesse, Jessica and Nathan further strengthens Willkie’s first in class transactional team in Dallas and continues the momentum of our Dallas office, which has welcomed several impressive lateral partners in recent months. Many Willkie partners in Dallas, including myself, worked with Jesse, Jessica and Nathan previously and know them to be premier transactional practitioners who are trusted advisors to their clients. We are thrilled to be working with them again. They have deep market knowledge and extensive experience that will complement our strong M&A and private equity capabilities in Texas and across the Firm.” Jesse commented: “The opportunity to partner and collaborate with this group of distinguished and trusted advisors, many of whom I have known for years, is truly inspiring. Willkie’s dedication to the Texas market and excellence in private equity, mergers and acquisitions, and capital markets perfectly complements our clients’ needs and my professional goals.” Jesse and Jessica join from Akin Gump. Nathan joins Willkie from A&O Shearman. Willkie’s Dallas office was launched in May 2024 and extends the Firm’s preeminent private equity, M&A, finance and asset management practices to a diverse array of clients located in the Dallas-Fort Worth area as well as nationwide. Our team advises on corporate transactions, private equity, finance, restructuring, tax and additional transactional matters, and has significant experience in the energy, infrastructure, industrial, manufacturing, aviation, automotive, chemicals, real estate, technology and retail sectors. Earlier this year, Willkie extended its footprint in Dallas by adding a second floor to its lease at The Quad in Uptown Dallas. ***************************************************** Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP provides leading-edge legal solutions on complex, business critical issues spanning markets and industries. Our more than 1,200 attorneys across 16 offices worldwide deliver innovative, pragmatic and sophisticated legal services across approximately 45 practice areas. Learn more at www.willkie.com.

Jul 15

3 min

Fredrick Wilson Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP has hired a partner from Troutman Pepper Locke LLP, who is joining the energy regulatory team to advise clients on a range of matters before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, an agency he used to work for. Fredrick Wilson works with investor-owned utilities, generation and transmission cooperatives, independent power producers, and transmission companies, the firm said in an announcement Tuesday. He joined the Willkie team in D.C. after almost four years as a partner with Troutman. In an email to Law360 Pulse Thursday, Wilson said that the firm's global platform and investment in transactional and regulatory energy capabilities "were a significant draw for me and align well with my practice goals and my experience." "Large data center loads, an evolving supply mix, and increasingly complex transactions are leading to an evolution in the way utilities and other market participants operate," Wilson said. "I'm excited to be a part of the team here, and to lead a regulatory group that complements industry-leading finance and private equity practices." Wilson earned a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from Howard University, and worked in engineering roles in the energy industry before earning his law degree. He worked for the Georgia Transmission Corp. and Reliant Energy Inc., and then worked for a little more than two years as a senior regulatory specialist, according to his LinkedIn profile. Wilson said that when the Energy Policy Act of 2005 was signed into law while he worked as an engineer, it was the first time he understood the impact that regulations can have on the operation of utilities. That realization brought him to pursue his law degree, he said. "I've used the combination of technical and government experience to support my clients in their efforts to navigate the challenges of operating and investing in the energy industry," he said. After earning his law degree from the University of Houston Law Center, Wilson spent four years at FERC, first as a trial attorney in the agency's Office of Administrative Litigation, then as a legal adviser to Commissioner Colette D. Honorable. He took his first role in private practice in 2016 with White & Case LLP, his LinkedIn profile says. Wilson spent about five and a half years at his first firm, then nine months as a Davis Wright Tremaine LLP senior counsel. He joined Troutman in 2022, according to his LinkedIn profile. Eric Pogue, the global chair of Willkie's power and renewable energy group, said in a statement that Wilson "will be a great addition to our global energy team." "Fred brings a broad range of diverse experience; significant legal, regulatory and technical knowledge; and proven success helping clients navigate transactions, projects and related regulatory issues in the energy space," Pogue said. Willkie announced last month the firm had added a pair of funds attorneys in New York and Washington, D.C. The firm has made several other additions in 2026, including a restructuring partner in Chicago from Kirkland & Ellis LLP, a Sidley Austin LLP private equity attorney in Los Angeles, and an entertainment litigator in that city from Paul Hastings LLP.

Feb 19

3 min

A private equity firm accused by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission of defrauding investors in a $1 billion fund lost its bid Wednesday to discharge the court-appointed monitor overseeing its books when a Florida federal judge rejected arguments that the monitor was acting in bad faith. In a videoconference hearing, U.S. District Judge Darrin P. Gayles denied a motion by Broad Street Global Management LLC to discharge court-appointed monitor Jeffrey Schneider, a partner at Levine Kellogg Lehman Schneider & Grossman LLP. Broad Street said Schneider failed to disclose that he knew the SEC's expert in the case, and accused him of bad faith tactics like threatening a receivership if the company did not agree with him. Judge Gayles said he did not find any bad faith on Schneider's part and noted that the pool of attorneys and experts who work on these types of cases is small, so it is not surprising that Schneider knows others involved in the case. "I'm going to deny the motion to discharge the monitor, but I do want to emphasize to the parties that the monitor here is an officer of the court and reports to the court," Judge Gayles said. "He does not report to the SEC. It's important for the monitor to have open dialogue with the SEC and the defendants, but he works for the court and no one else." Judge Gayles also made clear that his order appointing Schneider does not require the monitor's approval for business decisions. The order says defendants must make the monitor aware of significant business decisions before enacting them, but that does not equate to monitor approval, the judge said. "I don't know how long a monitorship is necessary, but I do find at this point there is sufficient basis for me to continue the monitorship," Judge Gayles said. Earlier in the hearing, Broad Street attorney Brianna Hathaway of Lomax Legal said the relationship between the firm and Schneider was initially good until a few months ago when, she said, the SEC began putting pressure on him to be more critical of the firm. Ariel Lett of Lett Law PLLC, who also represents Broad Street, said Schneider had "opened himself up to legal liabilities" and that Broad Street intends to sue him for $580 million. Stephanie Hauser of Levine Kellogg Lehman Schneider & Grossman LLP, who represents Schneider, called these "very serious and frankly unsubstantiated allegations," and said the firm was only asking the court to make findings of bad faith so that they could sue her client. "To say he's the one who has engaged in intimidation tactics is ironic considering that's what they're doing against him," Hauser said. "It's conduct that this court really should not condone." Judge Gayles also rejected a follow-up request to appoint a different court monitor after Irwin Weltz of Weltz Kakos Gerbi Wolinetz Volynsky LLP, who also represents Broad Street, said the relationship with Schneider has been "irreversibly damaged." "We're willing to report to you directly every two weeks or get another monitor, but we don't see how we can proceed forward in a way that protects everyone with this monitor," Weltz said. "There's a lot of money, a lot of people involved here, and an irreversibly damaged relationship is not a good thing." But the judge denied the request and told the parties to work it out. The SEC filed suit in January, alleging that the South Carolina firm and its three top officials had made a number of false promises and statements to investors in the fund, including about the profitability of some of the investments they managed and claims that they would segregate investor assets. The agency also accuses the defendants of diverting $170 million in investor funds into bank accounts overseen by brothers and fund managers Joseph and Steven Baldassarra, as well as accounts controlled by the firm's CEO, David Feingold. The lawsuit says there were more than 1,000 investors in the fund, which was divided into "series" that allowed participants to invest in different real estate development opportunities or in other ventures like small business funding. Despite promising to keep the pools of investment funds separate from one another, the assets in the various series were "extensively commingled," the SEC says. The agency also says investors in the small business loans, known as merchant cash advances, were paid inflated returns. Judge Gayles appointed Schneider as monitor in April, making him responsible for reviewing the books and records of the Broad Street entities, including documents related to the fund's assets, transaction records, financial statements, bank records, ledgers and communications provided to the fund's investors. The SEC is represented in-house by Terry Miller and Jacqueline M. Moessner. Schneider is represented by Stephanie L. Hauser of Levine Kellogg Lehman Schneider & Grossman LLP. Feingold and Broad Street Inc. are represented by Thomas Scot Wolinetz and Irwin Weltz of Weltz Kakos Gerbi Wolinetz Volynsky LLP, Ioannis G. Conits of Gallivan White & Boyd PA, Ariel Lett of Lett Law PLLC and Jessica W. Laffitte of Gallivan White & Boyd PA. Broad Street Global Management, Joseph Baldassara and Steven Baldassara are represented by Thomas J. Krysa, Andrew A. Howell and Crystal B. Carswell of Foley & Lardner LLP, Lorne E. Berkeley of Berkeley Law PA and Brianna Hathaway of Lomax Legal. The case is U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission v. Feingold et al., case number 1:25-cv-20436, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida.

Dec 3

4 min