Polsinelli is adding tax attorney Joseph Mandarino as a shareholder from Smith Gambrell & Russell in a move that strengthens its tax and transactional practices firmwide and adds to its Atlanta offerings.
Mandarino joined Polsinelli after practicing more than a decade with Smith Gambrell. His practice focuses on domestic and international tax matters, including structuring M&A transactions and private equity funds, restructurings and bankruptcies.
He is the latest addition to the firm’s tax and trusts and estates practices, following the arrival of shareholders Aman Badyal in Los Angeles in December, and Albert A. del Castillo Jr. in Miami in January.
William Sanders, chair of Polsinelli’s tax practice, said Mandarino “enhances” the firm’s ability to counsel on domestic and cross-border transactions and strengthens its capabilities in controversy and state and local tax planning.
“Joe is a highly respected tax advisor with deep experience in transactional structuring, fund formation and complex multi-jurisdictional matters,” Sanders said in a statement.
Mandarino, who joined the firm earlier this month, said he was drawn to Polsinelli because its tax expertise, depth and cross-selling opportunities were a “really good match” for his practice.
“It’s just a very good fit in terms of a skill set,” he said in an interview.
The firm’s platform “has so much growth and so much deal volume that there’s just a lot of work here,” Mandarino said.
“It’s a lot of what I would call interesting work,” he said. “This is very sophisticated tax work, which is part of the lure.”
He said he will continue to operate the same general tax practice he had at his former firm. However, at his new firm, his practice will have an additional “level of sophistication of the deals because of where Polsinelli sits in the legal market” in terms of its core finance and corporate practices.
Polsinelli also is “four times as large as my last firm” which gives more opportunities for cross-selling that will benefit his clients, Mandarino said.
“If I have a client that has a certain (non-tax) question, it’s great to be able to set them up on a call with somebody, like, in Arizona who can talk to them about a specific legal issue,” Mandarino said.
“As [his clients] grow, they have more and more of these non-tax needs,” he said. “So that’s why it being a platform for non-tax expertise is very useful.”
Kansas City, Missouri-founded Polsinelli ranked No. 59 on the Am Law 100. It broke through the $1 billion mark in 2025 with a 26% increase in revenue, grossing $1.2 billion while seeing profits climb about 23% to $3.07 million per partner, according to ALM data.
The firm's Atlanta office opened in 2014 through a combination with litigation boutique Rafuse Hill & Hodges. Its website shows the office includes about 50 lawyers, including the firmwide leaders of its government investigations; home health, home care and hospice; technology transactions; electrical engineering and computer science patent prosecution; and commercial contracts and transactions practices.
Polsinelli has been active in seeking new shareholders to bolster other practice areas in recent months, including Emily Hippen who joined the firm in the real estate practice in Denver from Otten Johnson, and Arteen Mnayan as head of its California land use practice in Los Angeles from Mayer Brown.
But Polsinelli also lost some talent this month, including a five-partner transactional team in St. Louis and Chicago to Norton Rose Fulbright.
Smith Gambrell did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In Other Moves
>> Fisher & Phillips added former federal prosecutor Brandon Brown as a partner in New Orleans, Louisiana, in recent weeks from a position as chair of the government and internal investigations practice group at the now-closed McGlinchey Stafford firm.
Brown moved to McGlinchey in January 2025 after serving a total of almost 12 years with the U.S. Justice Department, including three years as U.S. attorney for the Western District of Louisiana.
Ed Harold, regional managing partner of the labor and employment firm’s New Orleans office, said Brown’s experience gives him “a truly unique perspective to be able to defend clients’ interests against government allegations at all phases of litigation and investigations.”
McGlinchey's partners cited such factors as lagging collections in announcing the firm was winding down operations in January. Its former attorneys have scattered to such firms as Husch Blackwell, Spencer Fane, Phelps Dunbar, Jones Walker, Adams and Reese and Womble Bond Dickinson.
>> Maynard Nexsen has added corporate attorney Steve McPheeters as a shareholder in Birmingham, Alabama, which "strengthens our ability to serve clients in the fast‑growing health care M&A market and other specialized industries,” a firm leader said.
His practice focuses on M&A deals with an emphasis on health care-related transactions for medical and dental groups, health systems, hospitals, durable medical equipment providers, prescription benefit managers and more in private equity transactions, strategic acquisitions and divestitures and joint ventures.
McPheeters is returning to the firm after four years with dental partnership HighFive Healthcare, a Maynard Nexsen client where he worked as chief legal officer. Before joining HighFive in 2021, McPheeters practiced for 21 years with Maynard Nexsen predecessor firm Maynard Cooper & Gale.
McPheeters joined the firm as a member of Maynard’s mergers and acquisitions, corporate and business transactions and private equity and venture capital teams.
>> Atlanta-founded FisherBroyles has further expanded its work in the U.S.-China cross-border market with the additions of partners Jiangang “James” Ou and Ying Chen in Houston, Texas, from Archer & Greiner.
Ou's practice focuses on complex cross-border litigation, international arbitration, cross-border bankruptcy matters and Chinese manufacturers’ nearshoring and onshoring projects in North America. Chen's practice concentrates on corporate, M&A and commercial litigation and arbitration. She advises U.S. and Chinese companies on cross-border transactions, regulatory matters and dispute resolution across a range of industries.
Their additions follow the fully distributed firm’s affiliation with Hong Kong firm Man & Tsang earlier this month.
>> Jones Day recently announced two Atlanta-based partners were named to firm leadership positions.
The firm named Walt Davis to lead its securities litigation & SEC enforcement practice, and Mary Alexander Myers to lead its cybersecurity, privacy and data protection practice.
Davis’ practice emphasizes securities litigation and SEC enforcement; business and tort litigation; and ESG (environmental, social and governance). He practiced with Jones Day for 17 years before serving as the first judge of the Georgia Statewide Business Court from 2019 to 2022.
Myers’ practice focuses on cybersecurity, privacy and data protection; intellectual property; technology; and energy transition and infrastructure. She also works on financial services and fintech matters, including in the payments, crypto, and derivatives spaces. She joined Jones Day from law school and has practiced with the firm for 13 years.
• Two former partners with midsize firm Weinberg Wheeler Hudgins Gunn & Dial departed the firm in recent weeks to launch plaintiff’s firm O’Neill Friedman in Atlanta, they announced.
Founding partners Johnny Friedman and Shane O’Neill were litigators and served as national counsel for corporate clients at Weinberg Wheeler before launching O’Neill Friedman. Their new firm will focus on appeals, catastrophic injury and wrongful death cases, product defect and product-safety litigation, medical malpractice and more, the firm said in a news release.
O’Neill practiced for 15 years with Weinberg Wheeler, while Friedman was with the firm for 17 years after previous stints as an associate and partner with King & Spalding, Lord Bissell & Brooke (now Troutman Pepper Locke) and McKenna Long & Aldridge (now Dentons).
Feb 24
Deal Summary
