The Legal 500 Names Eckert Seamans Members Among Leaders in 2025 Philadelphia City Elite Rankings
June 25, 2025
Five Members from national law firm Eckert Seamans have been named to The Legal 500’s inaugural Philadelphia City Elite rankings. Frank R. Emmerich Jr. is recognized in the Commercial Disputes category, Michael D. Ecker and Ernest D. Holtzheimer are recognized for Corporate and M&A, and Mark T. Vogelbacker and Richard E. Peirce are recognized for Intellectual Property Law. The Legal 500 U.S. City Elite rankings highlight key lawyers who are handling work at the top of the legal market in their respective cities.
Emmerich serves as Chair of the firm’s Commercial Litigation practice group and as Co-Member-In-Charge of Eckert Seamans’ Philadelphia office, where he focuses his practice on complex commercial litigation, specifically in matters involving trade secrets and unfair competition, restrictive covenants, and intellectual property. His emphasis on early strategic development of a case and experience in implementing it in the courtroom is sought by large companies, nonprofits, entrepreneurs, and individuals facing complex commercial concerns.
Ecker focuses his practice on corporate matters such as emerging growth and technology, financial institutions, and health law. He counsels closely held and family-owned businesses and has experience assisting in the buying and selling of businesses, including complicated transactions involving multi-level financing, mergers, equity arrangements and earn-out provisions. Clients rely on Ecker’s counsel throughout all stages of these transactions, including due diligence guidance; entity formation; the negotiation and drafting letters of intent and term sheets; valuation; and analyzing, negotiating, and securing financing.
Holtzheimer is an experienced transactional attorney, having assisted numerous U.S. and international clients in transformative mergers and acquisitions and complex commercial transactions valued in excess of $2.5 billion across multiple industries, including manufacturing, distribution, healthcare, food and beverage, e-commerce and retail, education, software, and industrial and business services. As a former business owner, he also serves as outside general counsel to a number of emerging and middle market companies.
Vogelbacker serves as Chair of the firm’s Intellectual Property practice. He concentrates his practice on the full spectrum of intellectual property matters, including patent and trademark procurement in the U.S. and internationally, IP licensing and enforcement, infringement clearance, and trademark, copyright, and domain name dispute resolution. With a background in mechanical and electro-mechanical engineering, his technical proficiency spans medical equipment, consumer goods, power systems, product packaging, and precision light sources and measurement devices.
Peirce focuses his practice on trademark, copyright, Internet, and e-commerce issues. These include matters relating to Internet brand protection strategies, online brand disputes, content moderation and user generated content, online defamation and product disparagement disputes, search engine advertising, website linking, copyright disputes and fair use, social media, false advertising, website policies and privacy, licensing, domain name disputes, and the FTC guidelines on the use of endorsements and testimonials in advertising.
The Legal 500 is a comprehensive research guide that highlights the practice area teams and attorneys who are providing the most cutting edge and innovative advice to corporate counsel around the world. Research is based on feedback from more than 300,000 clients worldwide, submissions from law firms, and interviews with leading private practice lawyers. To view the full rankings, click here.