Roanoke law firm promotes five attorneys

Roanoke-based firm Gentry Locke Rakes & Moore LLP has promoted five attorneys to partner — Les Bowers, Benjamin Byrd, Christen Church, Peter Irot and Justin Lugar.

Bowers focuses his practice on medical malpractice, personal injury and products liability matters but also assists clients in complex commercial litigation and white-collar criminal matters.  He earned his law degree from the University of Virginia School of Law and his undergraduate degree from U.Va.’s McIntire School of Commerce.

Byrd represents injured people in medical malpractice, wrongful death and personal injury cases. He graduated cum laude with a law degree from Washington and Lee University School of Law and is a magna cum laude graduate of the Charleston of Charleston.

Church is an attorney in the firm’s General Commercial practice group with a transactional and advisory practice focusing on mergers and acquisitions, intellectual property, commercial financings, health-care regulation and compliance, data privacy and security, as well as structuring both state and federal tax credit financings/transactions. She earned her law degree from Washington and Lee University School of Law and her undergraduate degree from the University of Virginia.

Irot is an attorney in the firm’s Insurance practice group, and has wide-ranging experience in handling personal injury, workers' compensation, and commercial litigation matters. He received his law degree with honors from the University of Texas School of Law and earned his undergraduate degree from Rice University.

Lugar is an attorney in Gentry Locke’s Criminal and Government Investigations Practice Group where he recently defended a former company president in an eight-week jury trial in the Middle District of Georgia.  Before joining Gentry Locke, he was an associate at WilmerHale in London.

He received his undergraduate degree at the University of Virginia, earned his degree from Liberty University School of Law and graduated with distinction from the University of London with a master of laws degree in dispute and conflict resolution, with distinction.