Law360 honored the Hotels and Leisure practice with a spot on its Practice Groups of the Year awards, acknowledging the group's exceptional work on some of the most complex, large and significant transactions in the Hospitality industry. Over the past year, the group closed over US$6.3 billion in deals, taking on challenging transactions marked by tight deadlines and turnaround demands.

Practice chair Rick Ross and sector vice chair and Phoenix managing partner Meghan Cocci attributed the practice’s success to seamless teamwork and access to the firm’s global resources, allowing it to handle the high volume of complicated deals under fire while delivering high quality results to clients. As Meghan explained to Law360, “The biggest hurdle we had to pass was that the hotel industry took a jump and got extremely active. We were dealing with and juggling four, five and six deals on each of our plates.”

In one of the most prominent deals noted by Law360, the firm’s represented Playa Hotels & Resort in its US$1 billion expansion into Latin America and joint venture with Hyatt Hotels. Completed in July 2013, this transaction marked Hyatt’s entry into the resort market and involved several concurrent, multi-million dollar deal components. Dentons continues to advise Playa in connection with its ongoing management, franchise and development efforts.

The Practice Group of the Year award by Law360 represents the latest in a string of third-party recognitions.  For seven consecutive years, the practice has earned a National Band 1 ranking from Chambers USA, which has praised the group’s specialized sector knowledge for “setting them apart from most other firms who treat hotels simply as an extension of their real estate practice.” Rick is an established market leader, occupying the top tier of Chambers USA’s individual rankings since 2007, and in 2013, Law360 named Meghan a Hospitality MVP of the Year, recognizing her as one of the top four lawyers in the field.

“We truly practice as a team, and that’s so important to understand the nature of our success,” said Rick. “It's not just that we have a great bench and great lawyers, but we really play as a team.”