Barbara Hart & Anne Penachio Join Lowey Dannenberg

 

WHITE PLAINS, NY – Lowey Dannenberg is pleased to welcome attorneys Barbara J. Hart and Anne Penachio to the firm. Hart’s outstanding reputation and extensive accomplishments are reflected in the firm’s new name: Lowey Dannenberg Cohen & Hart.

A nationally-recognized litigator, Hart concentrates her practice in complex class action litigation, representing institutional clients in a broad range of matters with particular emphasis on securities and antitrust litigation. Hart will lead the firm’s securities litigation practice.

Hart has recovered in excess of one billion dollars on behalf of her clients, and gained national acclaim as lead counsel in precedent-setting securities class action cases, including In re Waste Management Securities Litigation, which settled for $457 million, and In re El Paso Corporation Securities Litigation, which settled for $285 million. In 2007, Hart was lead trial counsel for the Connecticut Retirement Plans and Trust Funds in the JDS Uniphase Securities Litigation case. She is currently co-lead counsel in the In re Air Cargo Antitrust Litigation, which alleges an international cartel among freight carriers.

A frequent lecturer, Hart has spoken before the Council of Institutional Investors, The Federalist Society, the New York Bar Association, The Institute for Law and Economic Policy, the Public Funds Forum and the Practicing Law Institute.

Hart earned her undergraduate degree from Vanderbilt University (B.A., 1982) and a master’s degree from the University of North Carolina (1987). She graduated from Fordham University School of Law in 1992 where she was a member of the Law Review.

Anne Penachio is a leading bankruptcy and commercial litigation attorney who will lead the firm’s new bankruptcy and creditor’s rights practice.

Penachio is a former law clerk to the Honorable Howard Schwartzberg, United States Bankruptcy Judge for the Southern District of New York. Thereafter, she was associated with Curtis, Mallet-Prevost, Colt & Mosle before opening a solo practice.

Some of the notable bankruptcy proceedings she has worked on include the following: In re Thomson McKinnon Securities and Thomson Advisory Group, Inc.; In re Fundamental Brokers, Inc.; In re Park South Securities, LLC; In re McClelland Food Management Group, LLC; and Metromedia Fiber National Network et al.

Penachio is a 1991 graduate of Fordham College (B.A., cum laude, 1988) and Fordham Law School (J.D. 1991).

“We are thrilled to grow our law firm through the addition of two such accomplished lawyers,” said Lowey Dannenberg founder and chairman Stephen Lowey. “Barbara Hart is well known among the top echelons of the commercial litigation bar nationally for her many significant accomplishments. To have a lawyer of her stature and experience is an enormous plus for our law firm.”

 

Lowey added, “Anne Penachio brings new capabilities to our firm. So much of modern commercial litigation requires bankruptcy law abilities and knowledge and now we have one of best lawyers in the field.”