Jeffrey R. Patt

Jeffrey Patt chairs the firm’s Mergers and Acquisitions Practice. Mr. Patt represents clients in a wide range of domestic and international mergers and acquisitions, as well as corporate governance, capital raising and general corporate matters. Mr. Patt’s mergers and acquisition practice has spanned a variety of public and private transactions, including the transactions described below. He has represented financial and strategic buyers, as well as sellers, in industries that include IT and business services, insurance and financial services, for-profit education and manufacturing. Mr. Patt has served as special committee counsel in a number of going private and affiliate transactions, and he has represented management teams and executives in leveraged buyout transactions, spin-offs and bankruptcy sales.

Mr. Patt’s securities law experience has included representing issuers in public offerings and private placements of debt and equity securities. He also has counseled public companies in connection with their periodic reporting as well as corporate governance matters. Mr. Patt has represented institutional, venture capital and strategic investors in connection with their investments in public and private issuers. This work has ranged from early stage venture capital transactions to mezzanine financings with equity features to private investments in public entities. Mr. Patt has been selected for inclusion in Illinois Super Lawyers (2012–2013).

Presentations and Publications

Mr. Patt is an adjunct professor at Chicago-Kent College of Law, where he teaches a mergers and acquisitions class as part of the LLM program in International and Comparative Law. He is the co-author of Stockholders’ Agreements Line by Line: A Detailed Look at Stockholders’ Agreements and How to Change Them to Meet Your Clients’ Needs (Thomson Reuters/Aspatore Books, October 2011). Mr. Patt's previous writings include Putting Delaware Officers Under the Microscope, published on Law360 in 2009. In March 2012, Mr. Patt moderated a panel discussion on starting a business at the Northwestern University Law School Entrepreneurship Conference. In June and October 2012, he moderated panel discussions on "Big Data: In the Future There Will Be No Software Companies--Only 'Data' Companies" and on "Collaboration: Unlocking the Value of Social Technologies" as part of an ongoing series on technology trends hosted by Katten and the Illinois Technology Association. Mr. Patt also has spoken at client and industry conferences and seminars on topics ranging from fiduciary duty and structuring considerations in mergers and acquisitions to incenting and retaining management and key employees and legal aspects of initial public offerings. He has contributed to firm client advisories on mergers and acquisitions and public securities topics, including advisories on shareholder proxy access, shareholder voting rights and pre-merger notification reporting.

Education

Mr. Patt received his BBA from the University of Illinois and his JD, with high honors, from Chicago-Kent College of Law. His academic honors in law school included Order of the Coif. He also was the lead editor of the IIT/Chicago-Kent Law Review.