.
3/25/22, 4:18 PM Ind. Leasing Giant Hires Dentons Litigator As GC – Law360
https://www.law360.com/pulse/articles/1477527/print?section=pulse/daily-litigation 1/2
Meagan Brien
Portfolio Media. Inc. | 111 West 19th Street, 5th floor | New York, NY 10011 | www.law360.com
Phone: +1 646 783 7100 | Fax: +1 646 783 7161 | customerservice@law360.com
Ind. Leasing Giant Hires Dentons Litigator As GC
By Caleb Drickey
Law360 (March 25, 2022, 4:30 PM EDT) — Transportation industry
conglomerate United Companies has lured Dentons Bingham Greenebaum
LLP partner Meagan Brien away from private practice, naming her vice
president and general counsel of the company.
The Indiana-based company announced Tuesday that Brien would be
responsible for ensuring regulatory compliance for all of United
Companies’ subsidiaries and would be charged with handling litigation and
mitigating the companies’ corporate insurance risks.
“Adding someone to the United family with invaluable experience like
Meagan’s is exciting,” Martha Ahlers, president of United Companies’
automobile lending business, said in a statement. “With her extensive
background counseling large and small businesses, nonprofits and
financial institutions, Meagan is a perfect fit for this role and will be a
great asset for United.”
United Companies functions as an umbrella organization overseeing three distinct lines of business.
In addition to auto lenders United Leasing & Finance, United Companies comprises new and used car
dealership Romain Automotive Group and Professional Transportation Inc., which provides van
transportation services for railroad workers, according to the company website.
As general counsel, Brien says her primary challenge will be to ensure the companies’ compliance
with federal and Indiana state employment and consumer protection laws, but that United
Companies’ wide-ranging businesses will lead to legal complexities.
“We’re in multiple jurisdictions, so that provides a lot of opportunities for growth, and when that’s the
case, you’re always subject to different [employment and lending] laws,” Brien said.
United Companies’ diverse service offerings, Brien said, offered opportunities to leverage a wide
range of skills developed over a decade-plus career in private practice.
Prior to her move in-house, Brien spent roughly seven years at Indiana firm Bingham Greenebaum
Doll LLP, known, after its merger with Dentons, as Dentons Bingham Greenebaum, where United
Companies says she earned a reputation as a “jack of all trades” before developing a lively trust,
guardianship and fiduciary dispute practice.
That fiduciary litigation practice, Brien says, led her to represent both plaintiffs and defendants, from
insurers and long-term health care to financial institutions. She also says that she served as outside
counsel and advised on corporate and real estate transactions for clients across the insurance,
construction and energy industries.
Brien earned a promotion to partner in February 2020, just four months after Bingham merged with
Dentons in a three-firm tie-up in October 2019.
The University of Kentucky and Indiana University School of Law graduate began her legal career at
Rhine Ernest LLP, a firm specializing in matters related to coal, oil, and mineral extraction. Rhine
Ernest merged with Bingham in 2016.
3/25/22, 4:18 PM Ind. Leasing Giant Hires Dentons Litigator As GC – Law360
https://www.law360.com/pulse/articles/1477527/print?section=pulse/daily-litigation 2/2
–Additional reporting by Aebra Coe. Editing by Alyssa Miller.
All Content © 2003-2022, Portfolio Media, Inc.
