Barnett, Boult, Thornton Named Among Nashville Business Journal’s 2014 “Best of the Bar"

Adams and Reese attorneys Cindy Barnett, Mitch Boult and Gif Thornton have been selected among Nashville Business Journal’s 2014 “Best of the Bar” honorees. This is the 12th annual “Best of the Bar” awards publication and awards reception honoring Middle Tennessee’s leading lawyers and corporate counsel.

The Nashville Business Journal took nominations from the public for two months. Eligible nominees than participated in two weeks of private voting, allowing the nominees to vote on each other. This process is designed to find our which nominees truly are the best of the bar, according to their peers. The result is 80 total winners in four categories based on employee size.

On June 27th, the Nashville Business Journal will publish the “Best of the Bar” special publication, which highlights the leading lawyers who made the list. An awards cocktail reception will also be held on Thursday, June 26^th, from 5:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. at the Nashville City Club.

Boult counsels multi-national corporations on intellectual property matters and has served as lead advisor on branding campaigns throughout Asia, Europe and North America. He has established licensing and franchising networks for US corporations in Europe and Asia; and on multi-jurisdictional IP litigation involving rights and registrations in dozens of countries. As the challenges of regulatory compliance have proliferated, he advises clients on E-commerce and data privacy issues, including the US EU Safe Harbor, opt-in opt-out, and similar topics. Boult and his team have more than 6,000 trademarks under management and regularly devise both commercial and legal strategies for driving brand value, increasing brand strength, and decreasing the cost of global trademark portfolios. He has vast experience in domain name disputes before UDRP and equivalent tribunals and in proceedings before the US Patent and Trademark Office, and is known for creative approaches and improbable results in those forums. 

Boult is listed in The Best Lawyers in America (by Levine Leichtman Capital Partners) (Trademark and Intellectual Property Law), and in Super Lawyers State and Regional editions (by Thomson Reuters) for both Intellectual Property and International Law. He has been a member of the International Trademark Association for 15 years, serving on its Emerging Issues Committee and Fair Use and Other Boundaries Subcommittee. His team is the recipient of the 2013 Client Choice Award for the US and Canada.  Boult serves on the Executive Committee of Adams and Reese.  Before that he was Practice Group Leader for the Special Business Services Group, a role in which he led the Intellectual Property, Energy, Governmental Relations, Entertainment, Labor and Employment, ERISA and Health Care Practice teams.

Barnett is a public finance partner and regularly serves as bond counsel and issuer’s counsel. She has provided counsel for several landmark financings in the City of Nashville, from LP Field to the Schemerhorn Symphony Hall to the Metropolitan Nashville Airport and the addition of hundreds of affordable residential housing units.
 
Known for her work in the area of multi-family housing, Barnett has represented issuers, borrowers, underwriters, banks and trustees. Representative clients include the Metro Nashville Health and Educational Facilities Board and the Metropolitan Nashville Airport Authority.
 
Barnett played a key role in adding the Nashville office to Adams and Reese and served as Partner in Charge in Nashville from 2005 to 2008. She currently serves on the firm’s Expansion Committee. She has served as a member of Tennessee's Department of Human Services Advisory Council, Juvenile Court Pro Bono Program and the Board of Directors for St. Patrick’s Homeless Shelter. She is a Fellow of the Nashville Bar Association and also served as a member of the Funding Board for the Music City Center Project.

Thornton is a member of the firm’s Governmental Relations practice team, and he was featured in the Legal Section of Nashville Post's 2013 “In Charge” edition, featuring businesspeople and community leaders in Middle Tennessee who have “positively exerted their influence on Nashville and its surrounding communities.

Thornton serves as legislative counsel to a number of businesses, trade associations and governmental entities with interests before the Tennessee General Assembly. In addition, he represents clients before regulatory boards and administrative agencies of local, state and federal government. He has extensive experience in the areas of education, energy, health care, insurance, technology, transportation and utilities.

Thornton was named as the highest ranked lawyer/lobbyist on the Power 100 list of influential people in Tennessee, compiled annually by Business TN®. He was also selected by Business TN® as one of 2010’s Best 150 Lawyers in Tennessee, a peer reviewed survey of the 18,000 active lawyers in the state.