Melanie Lehman is the general counsel of a privately held manufacturing company. Prior to this position, her practice included representation of clients in business matters, review and negotiation of contracts, representing clients in asset and stock sales and purchases and counseling business owners and managers with transactions, contracts, commercial matters and financing. She has represented lenders and borrowers in commercial loans and Uniform Commercial Code Article 9 issues. Melanie advised clients on entity selection and with governing documents, such as partnership agreements, shareholders agreements and operating agreements. She has participated in numerous seminars and panel discussions dealing with commercial and business issues.
Finance Melanie has represented lenders and borrowers in many types of loan transactions, including secured and unsecured facilities, participated and syndicated loans, IDOTs, real estate acquisition and construction loans and tax-exempt financing.
Mergers and Acquisitions Melanie has represented clients in business purchases and sales, both stock and assets, with deal values ranging in size from approximately $1 million to more than $100 million. She has assisted clients from the confidentiality agreement and letter of intent stage, through due diligence and negotiation of the purchase agreement to the closing.
Business Law Melanie often served clients in an “outside general counsel” role by providing general business legal advice, risk management, contract review and drafting and coordination of legal services in other areas. She regularly advised clients in entity selection, governing documents and terms and conditions of sale.
Michael Mixell is a member of Barley Snyder’s Business, Trusts & Estates, and Finance & Creditors’ Rights practice groups. In his practice, he advises a broad range of clients in the areas of corporate succession and estate planning for family-controlled businesses, as well as banking and commercial, corporate, and real estate matters. Mike has extensive experience with mergers and acquisitions for privately controlled businesses and nonprofit entities. Mike also represents commercial and nonprofit lending institutions in a broad range of business and financing transactions, including loans financed through the Pennsylvania Industrial Development Authority (PIDA).
Mike also has extensive experience in estate and trust administration, including the representation of various financial institutions in trust and estate matters. He also represents a number of corporate trustees of special needs trusts, including Orphan’s Court matters in connection with special needs trusts and guardianships.
Read about Mike’s recent representative transactions:
Represented a multi-state beauty products distributor in the sale of its assets to an international manufacturer, while preserving related lines of business for the family to continue the business after the sale.
Helped broker the sale of a high-tech manufacturing company in northcentral Pennsylvania to a national competitor. He then counselled the seller in subsequent estate and trust planning to manage the substantial proceeds from the sale.
Represented two minority shareholders of a central Pennsylvania manufacturing business that was sold to an international competitor. He then was able to preserve the business relationship with the competitor and the selling company for other related businesses owned and operated by the family.
Assisted the founder of an eastern Pennsylvania food manufacturing company in setting up a donor-advised fund with a local community foundation. The foundation provides broad-based charitable support to the manufacturing facility’s local community.
The Best Lawyers in America, “Lawyer of the Year” for Trust & Estates, 2022
Rated AV Preeminent by Martindale-Hubbell
Select Lawyer, Polk-Lepson Research Group; Business and Commercial Law
The Best Lawyers in America, Trust & Estates (2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022), Closely Held Companies and Family Businesses Law (2022)
Joseph L. Kramer Award 1983 – Dickinson School of Law
Nancy celebrates three decades with Barley Snyder, where she focuses her practice on estate planning, administration over estates and trusts, long-term care planning and elder law issues. She appreciates the personal nature of estate planning and combines her knowledge with compassion when advising clients about wills, trusts, powers of attorney and medical directives. She remains sensitive to the sorrow and stress that people experience after the death of a loved one, as she guides clients through probate and the process of settling an estate.
Nancy also has significant experience in counseling older clients about long-term care planning and elder law issues, especially as related to eligibility for Medicare and Medical Assistance. She represents individuals and guardianship support agencies in connection with the appointment of guardians for incapacitated persons and the subsequent duties and obligations of the court-appointed guardians.
Nancy’s husband was a special education teacher for thirty-five years. As a result, Nancy has a special interest in working with persons with disabilities and their families to plan effectively for their future through the use of special needs trusts.
Because of her own background in teaching, Nancy frequently volunteers to speak to community groups on topics related to estate planning, estate administration and long-term care.
John is an attorney in the firm’s Litigation and Construction Law Groups. He is an experienced litigator who counsels clients in construction-related matters, with experience in litigation in both state and federal courts, arbitration and mediation and appellate litigation. His practice focuses on the defense of professional liability claims against design professionals, commercial litigation, construction contract review and litigation, insurance defense and products liability defense.
John represents architects, engineers, builders, contractors and subcontractors in matters involving contract interpretation and disputes as well as insurance, indemnification and arbitration contract provisions. John also assists his clients with collections, bid challenges, change orders, and the resolution of construction-related liquidated damages claims.
John also maintains an active practice in appellate litigation, successfully representing a variety of industries in the appeals process.
A love of motorsports and all things cars drew John into the world of mechanical and electrical engineering. His passion for the law surrounding the inventions that made cars go faster more safely brought him into intellectual property law. John is one of the many members of our Intellectual Property Practice Group whose real world experience – particularly his development of electrical and mechanical components – prepared him to make the jump into a career as a patent attorney.
In more than a decade as an attorney certified with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, John has worked in drafting and prosecuting domestic and international patent applications in mechanical and electrical arts. He’s also worked in highly technical fields such as communications systems, analog/digital circuits, radar/sonar systems, semiconductors, automotive components, digital imaging devices and optics.
In addition to patent preparation and prosecution, John’s practice includes preparing patentability, invalidity and non-infringement opinions, client counseling and trademark and copyright registration. He also has experience preparing requests for proceedings before the USPTO and prosecuting patent matters in front of boards such as the International Trade Commission.
John continues his love of motorsports on the amateur level, and he volunteers as a performance driving instructor for automobile clubs such as the National Auto Sport Association, Sports Car Club of America and Porsche Club of America. You can usually find him enjoying the outdoors, be it skiing in the winter or running and biking in the summer. Or, you may find him in the outdoors spending time with his two young children.
Joseph Erb is part of Barley Snyder’s Real Estate and Litigation practice groups. He is a member of the American Bar Association, the Pennsylvania Bar Association, and the York County Bar Association. He clerked for the Honorable John T. Miller of the York County Court of Common Pleas. Attorney Erb is member of St. Matthew Lutheran Church of Hanover; a past board member of the Hanover Red Cross; a past board member of the Battlefield Preservation Society of Gettysburg, and a past board member of the York County S.P.C.A.
Prior to law school and the practice of law, Joseph worked as a mixed gas tender/diver offshore throughout the oilfields of the Gulf of Mexico. He still continues nautical pursuits enjoying recreational scuba diving and sailing with friends.
Rob is counsel at the firm and serves as Chief Legal Officer of PAM Heath, a central Pennsylvania-based health care system that owns and operates more than 80 hospitals throughout the United States. He is responsible for all legal operations associated with PAM Health including compliance and regulatory, litigation, business development and contracting, and employment issues.
Rob has served as lead counsel in business litigation of all types, from small corporate claims to “bet-the-company” litigation. He regularly represented clients in complex litigation, including employment, intellectual property and corporate governance disputes. In addition, he has represented business and governmental entities in all aspects of employment law, from day-to-day human resource issues to drafting handbooks and employment agreements to litigating all aspects of employment discrimination, wage and hour, and FMLA claims.
“The Impact of Cyberculture on Administrative Litigation,” 6th Annual Administrative Law Symposium for the Pennsylvania Bar Institute (2001)
“The Practitioner’s Guide to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure,” co-author, Recent Developments in Federal Practice (1995, 1998)
“Rule 68: Awakening a Sleeping Giant,” co-author, 65 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 379 (1997)
“Practice Tips for Litigating in Federal Court,” co-author, 68 Pennsylvania Bar Association Q.1 (January 1997)
“Rule 11: Focus on Sanctions,” co-author, Vol. 2, No. 3, The Middle District Reporter 6 (Fall 1996)
“The Nuances of Rule 26,” co-author, Vol. 2, No.3, The Middle District Reporter 5 (Summer 1996)
“Cracking the Doctrinal Wall of Chapman v. Barney: A New Diversity Test for Limited Partnerships and Limited Liability Companies,” 5 Widener J. Pub. L. 89 (1995)
“Franklin v. Gwinnett County Public Schools: Bursting the Bubble of Sexual Discrimination in Education,” 19 Ohio No. U.L. Rev. 817 (1993)
Bob Frankhouser is a member of the firm’s Education, Employment and Labor law practice groups. He provides advice and representation to educational entities both as a general solicitor and as special counsel. In addition, Bob counsels employers on employment issues with special emphasis on labor union matters.
Bob’s legal practice has spanned nearly 40 years. During that time he has represented school districts in many employment and construction matters. He serves as the solicitor of record for a variety of educational entities, providing guidance on governance, general business issues and labor relations matters.
He also has years of experience in labor/management relations, negotiating for and providing counsel to the firm’s public school district clients on collective bargaining agreements. He also has litigated a wide variety of labor disputes for both the public and private employers he has represented.
Government tax regulations are constantly changing, and Lori McElroy’s experience as a member of Barley Snyder’s Tax Practice Group has given her an intimate understanding of the financial restrictions that can slow a business down, and how to rectify them. She works to solve complex governmental regulations and restrictions for qualified retirement plans from both an implementation and operation standpoint, and has experience with corporate and individual tax issues surrounding business formations and reorganizations. Lori also has experience in working with the Internal Revenue Service in defense of qualified plans as well as for individual clients and entities in tax controversies.
Lori has helped the firm carve out the niche of working with companies in converting to the very popular but also very complex employee stock ownership plans (ESOP). She also works in the areas of employees benefits when it comes to nonqualified deferred compensation, the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA), executive compensation, qualified plan audits from the U.S. Department of Labor as well as charitable giving.
Lori is also fundamentally involved in various aspects of estate planning and wealth management, as well as the implementation and operation of a variety of charitable trusts, as well as helping individuals in other areas of charitable giving. She also regularly advises public charities and private foundations on corporate and tax matters.
When most people think of estate planning, they immediately think about a will. But Sarah, a member of the firm’s Trusts & Estates Practice Group, understands the complexity of a complete estate plan to ensure that a person’s wishes are carried out goes much further than a will.
While she has helped many clients draft their wills, she is also qualified at developing comprehensive estate plans and has a broad array of experience with estate and trust administration. This area of her practice includes:
Drafting of wills
Drafting of power of attorney documents
Drafting health care power of attorney documents and living wills
Trust creation
Trust administration
Special needs trust establishment
Her work often takes her to Orphans’ Court, where she assists clients regarding the intricacies of special needs trust administration and guardianships of the person and of the estate. Those are legal tools that allow a person or entity to make decisions for another person of any age who is incapacitated or has certain special needs.
In her business practice, Sarah deals almost exclusively with the needs of nonprofit corporations, including religious entities and youth sports organizations. Her work advising nonprofit corporations includes:
Entity formation
Compliance
Bylaw review
Real estate transactions
Asset acquisitions
Dissolutions
Sarah and her husband Brian live in Birdsboro with their daughters Maggie and Gracie. Her family can often be found enjoying the outdoors while camping in central Pennsylvania or spending time at the Jersey shore.
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