Jonathan M. Minnen is a Partner in the Corporate Practice of Smith, Gambrell & Russell, LLP and is a member of the Firm’s M&A Practice, International Practice and Private Wealth Services Practice groups.
Mr. Minnen has extensive experience in a wide range of U.S. and overseas business transactions, including mergers and acquisitions, ongoing transactional matters, and corporate advisory work.
Mr. Minnen’s clients range from emerging and growth stage companies that show particular promise, to mature, established companies. His practice includes not only the traditional private and public companies, but also companies which are held by high net worth family enterprises. In representing these family enterprise businesses, with their unique dynamics of governance and multi-generational planning, Mr. Minnen draws on his own experience in a multi-generational family business before his legal career. He is a member of the Attorneys for Family-Held Enterprises and the Family Firm Institute. For some of his clients, Mr. Minnen functions as de facto outside general counsel and is responsible for managing those clients’ entire legal portfolios, which involves routinely teaming with other practice groups of the Firm to achieve the client’s objectives.
Legal advice is of the highest value to businesses when it furthers the objectives of the enterprise. When rendering legal counsel, Mr. Minnen tries to avoid “no” and instead endeavors to provide a practical pathway towards the objective whenever possible.
Mr. Minnen’s legal counsel is for both purely domestic companies and the U.S. operations of foreign companies, including companies from Japan, the United Kingdom, Germany, France and especially Israel. Mr. Minnen founded and heads the Firm’s Israel Practice Group. In furtherance of that area of practice, Mr. Minnen is an active volunteer with Conexx (formerly the American Israel Chamber of Commerce, Southeast Region), and serves as an officer and member of the Executive Committee for Conexx.
Mr. Minnen earned his Juris Doctor degree from the Emory University School of Law in 1988, where he was on the Dean’s List. He was elected by the faculty of the law school to be a national member of the Order of Barristers and was also a member of the Moot Court Society, winning the 1987 Law Day Competition and receiving the Arthur K. Bolton Best Brief Award.
Mr. Minnen is a member of the bars of New York and Georgia, and practices from both the Atlanta and New York offices of the Firm.
American-Israel Chamber of Commerce, Board of Directors and Executive Committee
Attorneys for Family-Held Enterprises and the Family Firm Institute