Bryan M.O'Keefe

Partner

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Bryan co-leads the firm’s Transactional Risk Insurance group, and has developed a unique practice area combining corporate transactional matters, reps and warranties insurance, and traditional labor law.


More About Bryan

Bryan is the co-creator and co-leader of Seyfarth’s interdisciplinary Transactional Risk Insurance group. Operating as a model of cross-departmental entrepreneurship, the Transactional Risk Insurance group has quickly become one of the industry’s leading underwriting counsel practices. Bryan and his team of over 60 Seyfarth attorneys worldwide advise RWI markets on all aspects of a deal, including advising at the pre-bid stage, crafting deal-specific and highly tailored underwriting call agendas, leading underwriting calls, running the underwriting process, preparing narrowly tailored exclusions, identifying key legal risks, and assisting with policy drafting. The Seyfarth team’s experience extends beyond traditional reps deals, and has grown to encompass real estate and REIT transactions, tax insurance, and contingent risk. Further, leveraging the firm’s long history of success in the capital market space, the Seyfarth team is the RWI market leader in secondary transactions. The Transactional Risk Insurance group also serves as coverage counsel on claims emanating from RWI policies. Bryan frequently appears in the media commenting on transactional risk insurance matters and is widely recognized as one of the thought leaders in the industry.

In addition to his practice representing insurers, Bryan also represents companies in buy-side and sell-side due diligence and bankruptcy matters. Bryan has been responsible for due diligence on more than 1,500 deals, with a particular emphasis on private equity transactions.

Given his strong familiarity with private equity investments, Bryan is frequently called upon after a transaction to be the “outside general counsel” for growth stage portfolio companies that lack in-house legal capabilities. In this role, Bryan serves as a “quarterback” for his clients and coordinates strategic legal matters across a wide variety of issues including litigation, labor and employment, employee benefits, trade secrets and restrictive covenants, IP, real estate, and environmental matters. Through the Seyfarth platform and Bryan’s collaboration and partnership with deal counsel, Bryan ensures that portfolio companies receive legal advice and counsel that enhances the long-term value of the company. Bryan relishes working closely with these companies and helping them take their business to the next level.

In addition to these practices, Bryan frequently represents employers in all aspects of traditional labor law, most notably in the hospitality industry. Bryan defends employers in grievance and arbitration matters, NLRB unfair labor practice charges and administrative law judge trials, NLRB appellate matters, union organizing and representational elections, collective bargaining, strikes, pickets, corporate campaigns, and union-related bankruptcy implications. Bryan was the management co-chair for Region V of the American Bar Association’s Committee on Practice and Procedure under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). In addition, Bryan has been a contributing editor to The Developing Labor Law and How to Take a Case Before the NLRB. Since 2019, he has been recognized in Chambers USA as a Leading Lawyer for Labor & Employment and is the youngest attorney in the Washington, DC market to achieve this honor. He has also been recognized in the Legal 500 for labor-management relations.

Bryan graduated summa cum laude from the Pennsylvania State University Dickinson School of Law and graduated summa cum laude from George Washington University, with a BA in Political Communications. While in law school, Bryan was the editor-in-chief of the Penn State Law Review. Prior to receiving his law degree, Bryan was a public policy consultant on labor, employment, and higher education in Washington, DC for several think tanks and trade associations, working with organizations such as the US Chamber of Commerce and HR Policy Association.

  • JD, Dickinson School of Law, The Pennsylvania State University

    Summa cum laude
    Penn State Law Review, editor-in-chief
    Woolsack Honor Society

  • BA, The George Washington University
    Political Communications

    Summa cum laude
    Departmental honors

  • District of Columbia
  • Maryland