Jackson Walker attorneys Lauren Ciminello, Shari Mao, and Matthew Swantner were recently selected for inclusion in S.A. Scene magazine’s 2014 ‘Rising Stars’ list.

‘Rising Stars’ are those considered to be the best young attorneys with a bright future in law. The list is created by senior attorneys of San Antonio and was published in the February 2014 edition of S.A. Scene.

Ms. Ciminello focuses her practice on advising corporate clients on various business transactions including entity formation, mergers, acquisitions, and reorganizations, public and private offerings of securities, and contract negotiations. Ms. Ciminello also regularly represents sophisticated family offices by advising on business operations, tax and wealth planning issues, succession planning, and structuring and negotiating corporate transactions for the assets held by such families and their operating businesses. Ms. Ciminello also represents borrowers in finance transactions and has worked on negotiating complex financing transactions totaling over $2 billion. She also has experience in representing lenders in finance transactions. Ms. Ciminello represents clients in a variety of industries, including oil and gas, oilfield-related services, energy, construction and heavy machinery, manufacturing and distribution internationally, food and beverage, and aircraft remanufacturing. Ms. Ciminello received her B.B.A. in Finance at Baylor University and her J.D. from St. Mary’s University School of Law.

Ms. Mao represents Jackson Walker’s privately held and publicly traded clients in a variety of corporate matters from entity formation and corporate governance to securities offerings and compliance with securities law. She assists clients in negotiating loan agreements, loan modifications, mergers and acquisitions, and other transactions. Additionally, she advises family offices in planning and restructuring entities for asset protection, tax planning, and investment and estate planning strategies. Prior to law school, she was vice president of a flooring company, where she managed the North American operations and collaborated with factories in China and Taiwan. She was a Risk Manager on the Pulp and Paper Desk at Enron and was retained after the mass termination to unwind and liquidate trades. Additionally, Ms. Mao was an associate at J.P. Morgan & Co., where she managed projects and implemented trade processing solutions in New York, London, and Tokyo. Ms. Mao received her B.A., magna cum laude, from Duke University and her J.D., magna cum laude, from St. Mary’s University School of Law.

Mr. Swantner’s practice focuses on commercial litigation including contract disputes, business torts, creditor’s rights, collection matters, oil and gas disputes, mineral and construction liens, and bankruptcy matters throughout Texas and New Mexico. Mr. Swantner also has extensive experience in post-judgment remedies such as issuing writs of execution and writs of garnishment, abstracting judgments, post-judgment discovery, asset searches, and filing construction and mineral liens. Mr. Swantner serves on the board of directors for Project Mend, which provides donated and refurbished medical equipment to low income persons with disabilities. He received his B.B.A. and J.D., with honors, from the University of Texas.