James T. Zelloe | Managing Director

Since 2016, Mr. Zelloe has served as Counsel and Manager of a company engaged in commercial lending in the Washington D.C. area. Mr. Zelloe acted as Principal and Counsel for a company involved in the acquisition of a strategic aerospace production company within the supply chain for the Big 3 Aerospace entities—Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, and General Dynamics—taking on the role of CEO upon acquisition in 2017 and successfully exiting the acquisition to private equity in 2022.

From 2014 to 2017, Mr. Zelloe was General Counsel to one of the world’s top male singers, a recipient of numerous accolades including 5 Grammy Music Awards, Latin Grammys, and Billboard Awards, with over 100 million albums sold to date, managing all legal aspects of the client’s personal and organizational affairs, such as touring, contract creation and review, third-party negotiations, federal litigation, and drafting and negotiating a “life story” contract with MGM for the production and distribution of the singer’s biography.

Mr. Zelloe spearheaded a litigation team that secured a jury verdict exceeding $13,000,000 in the Federal Eastern District of Virginia for an Egyptian-owned client against a Saudi Arabian company and its president, involving commercial oral contracts tied to a project for the King of Saudi Arabia, ultimately obtaining final resolution through the Court of the King of Saudi Arabia after significant legal rulings. Mr. Zelloe has been designated as an honorary member of the Bar of the Egyptian Supreme Court.

For over 25 years, Mr. Zelloe has provided legal and economic representation to an international business consortium and developer headquartered variably in Washington, D.C., Aspen, Colorado, Mexico, and Beverly Hills, California, achieving the highest residential real estate sales price in the United States in 2010 and, after a decade of coordination and legal maneuvering, securing complete ownership for a client of the largest aggregation of continuous, unencumbered, undeveloped residential land in Beverly Hills with views of downtown Los Angeles and the Pacific Ocean through successful litigation in the Supreme Court of California.

Mr. Zelloe served as counsel and facilitator in aggregating various land parcels over multiple years, resulting in the largest undeveloped parcel in Beverly Hills with multiple entry points, orchestrating successful litigation up to the Supreme Court of California to establish unimpeded fee simple ownership of the land.

Mr. Zelloe created and coordinated legal and economic solutions for a builder/developer in the Washington Metropolitan area, leveraging federal and state legal systems to vacate multi-million-dollar confessed judgments against the company and its principals, enabling the restoration of its business operations. He has acted as counsel for various U.S.- and foreign-based multinational entities involved in global business transactions across the United States, Europe, East Asia, India, the Middle East, and Africa, covering commercial and residential developments, airlines, petroleum products, commodities, foodstuffs, processing and distribution lines, and power plants, providing legal support, economic analysis, and guidance in navigating regulatory agencies and achieving desired outcomes.

Mr. Zelloe represented an individual businessman facing a million-plus verdict against himself and his entities, providing aggressive post-verdict representation during depositions and collection activities while orchestrating a successful appeal to the Supreme Court of Virginia, preserving the judgment debtor’s assets and businesses. With substantial experience in real estate, business, and commercial law, Mr. Zelloe has handled a wide range of transactions, including acquisitions, apartment-to-condominium conversions, land assemblage and development, private placements, leases, credit lines, secured transactions exceeding $60,000,000, asset purchases and sales, contract negotiations, drafting commercial paper, private stock transactions, franchises, restaurant sales and purchases, alcoholic beverage licenses, special use permits, zoning issues, and corporate, LLC, and LLP formations. He has served as general counsel for two lending and joint-venture companies involved in diverse commercial transactions and investments, providing capital for ventures ranging from private placements to secured and unsecured financing.

Mr. Zelloe was a member of the Board of Advisors of Virginia Commerce Bank, which merged into United Bank and was one of Virginia’s largest community banks with over 20 branches prior to the merger. In a case featured on the front page of Lawyer’s Weekly as the most requested case for five weeks, Mr. Zelloe utilized a new Virginia Supreme Court decision to obtain an injunction against a client’s former employees attempting to establish a competing company. Mr. Zelloe spearheaded and coordinated successful civil litigation for a major client against a former business partner over the largest collection of Ritz Carlton properties in the U.S., with litigation spanning Federal Bankruptcy Court in San Francisco, federal and state courts in Denver, and state court in Arlington, Virginia.

As general counsel to a major real estate development company, Mr. Zelloe directed legal staff, coordinated with outside counsel, developed strategies for retiring $2 billion in debt during the 1988-1991 real estate downturn, managed negotiations with major creditors and lending institutions, and oversaw all civil litigation.

Mr. Zelloe is an officer and director of a publicly traded company operating in Bulgaria and Switzerland, he managed civil litigation and related filings, brought the company into SEC compliance, and addressed insider corruption. Mr. Zelloe is also general counsel to a real estate settlement and escrow company, where he handled secured transactions for major real estate lenders in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area, including GE Capital, MBNA, NationsBank, First Union, and Merrill Lynch.