Retired, Winston & Strawn LLP
Jerry Loeser is of counsel in the Chicago office of Winston & Strawn, and his practice focuses on banking regulation. He has extensive experience in counseling financial services clients on, among other things, bank acquisitions, privacy, financial modernization, the USA PATRIOT Act, Basel II and III, lending limits, capital, trust, affiliate transactions, and Federal Reserve, OCC, FDIC, and CFPB regulations.
Prior to working at large corporate law firms, Jerry was chief regulatory and compliance counsel for Comerica Bank, where he also served as senior vice president and deputy general counsel and as general counsel of its retail bank division. Before that, he served as chief regulatory in-house counsel at Wells Fargo & Co. Jerry began his legal career advising the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System in Washington, D.C.
Class of 1965 Associate Professor of Financial Regulation, Associate Professor of Legal Studies & Business Ethics, The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania
Peter Conti-Brown is an assistant professor of legal studies and business ethics at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. A financial historian and a legal scholar, Professor Conti-Brown studies central banking, financial regulation, and public finance, with a particular focus on the history and policies of the US Federal Reserve System. He is author of the book The Power and Independence of the Federal Reserve (Princeton University Press 2016), the editor of two other books, and author or co-author of a dozen articles on central banking, financial regulation, and bank corporate governance. He has been widely quoted in print and online media on central banking and has testified before the US Senate Banking Committee on reforming the Federal Reserve. He holds degrees from Harvard College, Stanford Law School, and Princeton University’s Department of History. He is currently at work on a single-volume, comprehensive history of the US Federal Reserve.
Professor Conti-Brown is married and the father of two children.
Partner, Boyden Gray PLLC
Trent McCotter is a partner with Boyden Gray PLLC. He previously served as Deputy Associate Attorney General of the United States and as an Assistant U.S. Attorney.
Mr. McCotter maintains an extensive appellate practice. He has considerable experience identifying and briefing cases that draw the Supreme Court’s attention, having persuaded the Court to grant certiorari in numerous cases raising issues of sovereignty, constitutional rights, due process, and criminal law. He has authored and submitted over 60 briefs at the Court.
He has also personally argued more than fifteen federal appeals across the Second, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Ninth, Eleventh, Federal, and D.C. Circuits—including once arguing three separate appeals in just four days. He has also twice argued before the 17-judge en banc Fifth Circuit. He has been counsel in over 50 other appeals raising matters from FOIA and the APA to constitutional rights and statutory construction.
As Deputy Associate Attorney General, Mr. McCotter oversaw DOJ’s Civil Appellate and Federal Programs branches, which are responsible for defending nearly all major litigation against the federal government. During his three years as a federal trial attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia’s “Rocket Docket,” Mr. McCotter won the Attorney General’s Award for Distinguished Service.
During his DOJ tenures, Mr. McCotter also assisted with the confirmations of two Supreme Court justices and over a dozen lower-court judges.
Mr. McCotter served as an inaugural clerk to the Hon. Steven J. Menashi on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and also clerked for the Hon. R. Lanier Anderson III on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.
Senior Fellow, Bank Policy Institute
Jeremy Newell is a senior fellow at the Bank Policy Institute and recognized expert in banking law and financial services regulatory policy matters. As a former partner at Covington & Burling, Federal Reserve attorney and supervisor, and general counsel at both the Bank Policy Institute and The Clearing House Association, Jeremy has spent his career helping banks and other financial institutions to understand and navigate a rapidly-evolving regulatory environment and address complex and high-stakes legal and policy challenges. He is also a frequent speaker, writer, and teacher on U.S. bank regulation and the international framework for financial institutions.
Chairman & Co-Founder, Cynosure Group
Randal Quarles is Chairman and co-founder of The Cynosure Group. Before founding Cynosure, Mr. Quarles was a long-time partner of the Carlyle Group, where he began the firm’s program of investments in the financial services industry during the 2008 financial crisis.
From October 2017 through October 2021, Mr. Quarles was Vice Chairman of the Federal Reserve System, serving as the system’s first Vice Chairman for Supervision, charged specifically with ensuring stability of the financial sector. He also served as the Chairman of the Financial Stability Board (“FSB”) from December 2018 until December 2021; a global body established after the Great Financial Crisis to coordinate international efforts to enhance financial stability. In both positions, he played a key role in crafting the US and international response to the economic and financial dislocations of COVID-19, successfully preventing widespread global disruption of the financial system. As FSB Chairman, he was a regular delegate to the finance ministers’ meetings of the G-7 and G20 Groups of nations and to the Summit meetings of the G20. As Fed Vice Chair, he was a permanent member of the Federal Open Market Committee, the body that sets monetary policy for the United States.
Earlier in his career, Mr. Quarles was Under Secretary of the U.S. Treasury, where he led the Department’s activities in financial sector and capital markets policy, including coordination of the President’s Working Group on Financial Markets.
Before serving as Under Secretary, Mr. Quarles was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for International Affairs, where he had a key role in response to several international crises. Mr. Quarles was also the U.S. Executive Director of the International Monetary Fund, a member of the Air Transportation Stabilization Board, and board representative for the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation. In earlier public service, he was an integral member of the Treasury team in the George H. W. Bush Administration that developed the governmental response to the savings and loan crisis.
Between his tours of duty in public service, Mr. Quarles was a partner with the law firm of Davis Polk & Wardwell, working at various times in both the New York and London offices, where he was co-head of the firm’s financial institutions practice and advised on transactions that included a number of the largest financial sector mergers ever completed.
Mr. Quarles received an A.B. summa cum laude in philosophy and economics from Columbia in 1981 and a J.D. from the Yale Law School in 1984.
Partner, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, and Former United States Secretary of Labor
Eugene Scalia is a partner in the Washington, D.C. office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, co-chair of the firm’s Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice Group, and a senior member of the firm’s Labor and Employment Practice Group and Financial Institutions Practice Group. He returned to the firm after serving as U.S. Secretary of Labor from September 2019 to January 2021.
Mr. Scalia has a nationally-prominent practice in two areas: Labor and employment law, and advice and litigation regarding the regulatory obligations of federal administrative agencies. He also has extensive appellate experience. Federal regulatory actions he has challenged include the SEC’s “proxy access” rule; the CFTC’s “position limits’” rule; MetLife’s designation as “too big to fail” by the Financial Services Oversight Council; the Labor Department’s “fiduciary” rule; and OSHA’s “cooperative compliance program.”
As Labor Secretary, Mr. Scalia engaged at the highest level with national employment policy and matters affecting the financial services industry and international trade, overseeing the enforcement and administration of more than 180 federal employment laws covering more than 150 million workers and 10 million workplaces. He also served as Chair of the Board of Directors of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation and as a member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force. He was closely involved in the drafting and implementation of the CARES Act and other coronavirus-related legislation. Laws administered by the Labor Department also include the workplace safety requirements of OSHA and the Mine Safety and Health Administration, federal minimum wage and overtime protections, the anti-discrimination requirements applicable to federal contractors, and ERISA’s protection of the more than $11 trillion held in employee retirement plans and health plans.
Mr. Scalia served from 2002 to 2003 as Solicitor of the U.S. Department of Labor, with responsibility for all Labor Department litigation and legal advice on rulemakings and administrative law. He is the only person to have served as both Solicitor and Secretary of Labor.
He also served at the U.S. Department of Justice as a Special Assistant to the Attorney General, receiving the Department’s Edmund J. Randolph Award in 1993.
In private practice, Mr. Scalia has represented employers in high-profile matters under the National Labor Relations Act and in class actions and collective actions under Title VII, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, ERISA, and federal and state wage hour laws. He has extensive experience in federal district court, the courts of appeals, and in the arbitration of employment disputes. He has been a leading authority on “whistleblower” investigations and litigation since the 2002 enactment of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. Mr. Scalia also counsels employers on reductions-in-force and the proper conduct of harassment and discrimination investigations. He has provided pro bono representation to workers in discrimination matters, wrongful separation disputes, and other matters.
Mr. Scalia is a Senior Fellow of the Administrative Conference of the United States, a federal agency that makes recommendations to Congress and the Executive Branch on ways to improve the administrative process. He is the author of more than 30 articles and papers on labor and employment law, administrative law, and other subjects. Among other accolades, he has been named an “Employment MVP,” a “Securities MVP,” and an “Appellate MVP” by Law360. The National Law Journal recognized Mr. Scalia as a “Visionary” for his litigation against financial regulatory agencies, and the Nation magazine has called him a “fearsome litigator.” He has been a Lecturer in labor and employment law at the University of Chicago Law School.
Mr. Scalia graduated cum laude from the University of Chicago Law School, where he was editor-in-chief of the Law Review. He graduated With Distinction from the University of Virginia in 1985 and was a speechwriter for Education Secretary William J. Bennett before attending law school. Mr. Scalia and his wife Trish have seven children.
Principal, Ely & Company, Inc.
Bert Ely has specialized in deposit insurance and banking structure issues since 1981. In 1986, he became an early predictor of the S&L crisis and a taxpayer bailout of the FSLIC. In 1991, he was the first person to correctly predict the non-crisis in commercial banking; in 1992, he predicted an eventual taxpayer bailout of the Japanese banking system.
Bert continuously monitors conditions in the banking and S&L industries, monetary policy, and the growing federalization of credit risk. He has helped to draft legislation to enact the cross-guarantee concept for privatizing banking regulation and its related deposit insurance and systemic risks. He has testified on numerous occasions before congressional committees on banking issues and he often speaks on these matters to bankers and others.
Bert first established his consulting practice in 1972. Before that, he was the chief financial officer of a public company, a consultant with Touche, Ross & Company, and an auditor with Ernst & Ernst. He received his MBA from the Harvard Business School in 1968 and his Bachelor's degree in economics in 1964 from Case Western Reserve University.
Senior Counsel, Cleary Gottlieb
Michael H. Krimminger is Senior Counsel at Cleary Gottlieb where his practice focuses on U.S. and international banking and financial institutions.
In particular, he advises on the challenges and opportunities stemming from statutory and regulatory reforms in the United States and internationally. He recently served as lead counsel to itBit Trust Company, a commercial Bitcoin exchange, in becoming the first U.S.-chartered and regulated virtual currency exchange.
Michael joined Cleary Gottlieb in 2012 as partner after serving for more than two decades in numerous leadership positions with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), including most recently as its general counsel. As general counsel, he served as the principal legal and policy advisor to the chairman and board of directors regarding the legislative development and later implementation of regulatory and policy components of the Dodd-Frank Act, including its SIFI resolution, living wills, capital markets and capital, and structured finance requirements. Michael played a major role in the FDIC and U.S. efforts to enhance resolution planning and cross-border cooperation among G-20 countries. He was also responsible for all legal policy, litigation, corporate issues and operations for the 730 attorney and non-attorney members of the Legal Division.
Prior to serving as general counsel, Michael served as Special Advisor for Policy to the Chairman and deputy to the chairman for policy. He played a central role in the FDIC’s response to the financial crisis and the development of Dodd-Frank Act provisions addressing capital markets, capital requirements, creation of the Financial Stability Oversight Council, living wills, enhanced prudential supervision, risk retention, resolution authority, and other provisions of the act.
Michael’s international experience includes serving as the co-chair of the Basel Committee’s Cross Border Resolutions Group and representing the FDIC on the Financial Stability Board’s Resolution Steering Group and other bodies. He has played a central role in bilateral and multilateral discussions with regulators around the world on legal reform, resolution planning, capital and liquidity requirements, and strategies for implementation of financial market reforms for derivatives and other financial market contracts.
Michael became senior counsel in 2020.
Executive Director, The Financial Technology and Cybersecurity Center
Thomas P. Vartanian is the Executive Director of the Financial Technology & Cybersecurity Center, an author, financial services advisor, expert witness, and board mentor. He is the former Executive Director of the Program on Financial Regulation & Technology at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School, where he was also a Professor of Law. Between 1983 and 2018, he chaired the Financial Institution’s practices at two international law firms, Dechert LLP and Fried Frank LLP, through four financial crises. Both as a regulator and private practitioner, he has represented parties in a majority of the 50 largest financial institution failures in American history.
Mr. Vartanian served in the Reagan Administration during the S&L crisis as General Counsel of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board and the FSLIC. Prior to that, he served in the Carter Administration in the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency as Special Assistant to the Chief Counsel. Since departing government service, he has advised many subsequent presidential administrations on financial institution issues.
Mr. Vartanian is a futurist and expert in financial technology who has been described by clients in Chambers as “one of the best financial services lawyers in America.” Mr. Vartanian was Chairman of the American Bar Association’s Cyberspace Law Committee between 1998 and 2002, where he chaired an international task force of lawyers from twenty countries which released a seminal report in London in 2000 on the novel issues created by doing business in Cyberspace. He is currently a member of the American Association of Bank Directors’ Task Force on Bank Director Personal Liability Mitigation.
Mr. Vartanian has authored more than four hundred articles and eight books, including his new book, 200 Years of American Financial Panics: Crashes, Recessions, Depressions, and the Technology That Will Change It All chronicling the country’s tumultuous financial history and the impact that technology will have on its future.
He is a frequent lecturer and media commentator on the financial services industry, having appeared on Bloomberg TV, CNN, Fox News, Newsmax, PBS and various local and national radio shows. He has also taught financial services and digital commerce law at Georgetown Law School, George Washington Law School, and Boston University School of Law, and has been a guest lecturer at Harvard Law School.
In 2008, Mr. Vartanian was named “Washingtonian of the Year” based on his use of music and sports to raise money for charities in the D.C. metropolitan area. As a musician, he appeared in the first production in the United States in 1970 of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. His classic rock band, The Johnny Esquire Band, has helped raise approximately $5,000,000 for charities in the Washington D.C. area over the last twenty-five years. Mr. Vartanian also founded and plays for the Washington All Stars, a senior baseball team that has raised more than $500,000 for Special Olympics.
His next book, The Unhackable Internet, will be published in early 2023.
Managing Director, Banking Supervision and Regulation Group, Patomak Global Partners
Brian Johnson is Managing Director in the Banking Supervision and Regulation Group at Patomak Global Partners.
In this role, Mr. Johnson spearheads projects related to the regulation of consumer financial products under Keith Noreika, Executive Vice President and Chairman of the Banking Supervision and Regulation Group and former acting Comptroller of the Currency.
Prior to joining Patomak, Mr. Johnson was a partner in Alston & Bird LLP’s financial services and products group. There, he advised financial institutions on consumer finance regulatory issues relating to product compliance, examination, enforcement investigations, and compliance management systems, and on strategic engagement with independent federal regulatory agencies and with Congress.
Mr. Johnson previously served as Deputy Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), where he oversaw the agency’s rulemaking, supervision, and enforcement activities. He conceived and led the creation of high-profile agency initiatives, including the Office of Innovation, Taskforce on Federal Consumer Financial Law, policy symposia series, and Start Small, Save Up emergency savings program. He also served as the CFPB representative to the Financial Stability Oversight Council Deputies’ Committee and advised on interagency matters involving the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council.
Mr. Johnson held various positions on Capitol Hill, including policy director and chief financial institutions counsel on the House Committee on Financial Services, where his portfolio covered consumer protection and credit, mortgage origination, credit reporting, banking, and data security. His efforts on the committee involved drafting legislation to provide regulatory relief to bank, credit union, and nondepository financial institutions, as well as conducting oversight of the activities of the CFPB, Financial Stability Oversight Council, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Office of Financial Research, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, Federal Reserve System, and National Credit Union Administration.
Mr. Johnson received his juris doctorate from the University of Virginia School of Law and his bachelor’s in economics from the University of Virginia.
Partner, Foley & Lardner LLP
A trial and courtroom lawyer for over 30 years, Jason A. Levine is an antitrust and commercial litigation partner in the Washington, D.C. office of Foley & Lardner LLP.
Mr. Levine has served as lead counsel for clients in high-stakes and often multi-faceted business disputes. His diverse practice focuses on antitrust, complex contractual, and business tort suits. Mr. Levine tried 14 cases to judges and juries across the country, briefed and argued dozens of dispositive motions and several precedent-setting appeals, and has had an active amicus practice before the U.S. Supreme Court for nationwide trade associations. He was also lead counsel to defendants in several of the nation’s largest antitrust class actions and MDLs. Mr. Levine has perennially been recognized as a prominent litigator by Best Lawyers, SuperLawyers, Benchmark Litigation, and Global Competition Review. He also spent nearly four years as an Investment Manager at Omni Bridgeway, a global commercial litigation finance company, where he launched and led the Washington, D.C. office and led the U.S. antitrust strategy.
Mr. Levine received his B.A. summa cum laude (Phi Beta Kappa) from Brandeis University in 1991 and his J.D. cum laude from Harvard Law School in 1994, where he was Editor-in-Chief of the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy. Before entering private practice, Mr. Levine was a law clerk for Judge Randall Rader on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, where he focused on the court’s Takings and administrative cases.
Attorney, Pacific Legal Foundation
Jeff McCoy is an attorney at Pacific Legal Foundation. Jeff joined PLF in 2017. Since then, he has focused his litigation on separation of powers and private property rights. Jeff also leads PLF’s coastal land rights initiative, which seeks to strengthen and defend statutory and constitutional protections for coastal property owners across the country.
Throughout his career, Jeff has worked for various organizations that promote individual liberty and limited government. Prior to joining PLF, Jeff was a staff attorney at Mountain States Legal Foundation in Lakewood, Colorado, for five years. His work at Mountain States included helping secure victory for a Wyoming private property owner in U.S. Supreme Court case Marvin M. Brandt Revocable Trust v. United States. Besides Mountain States, Jeff worked as an intern for the Cato Institute during the spring of 2008, and after his first year of law school, he worked as a Charles G. Koch Summer Fellow at the Institute for Justice’s Seattle office.
Jeff received his B.A. degree in political science and philosophy from the University of Colorado in 2007 and his law degree, also from the University of Colorado, in 2011. During his time at law school, Jeff had the honor of working as a judicial extern for then-Judge Neil Gorsuch at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit.
Commissioner, United States Securities and Exchange Commission
Hester M. Peirce was appointed by President Donald J. Trump to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and was sworn in on January 11, 2018.
Prior to joining the SEC, Commissioner Peirce conducted research on the regulation of financial markets at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. She was a Senior Counsel on the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, where she advised Ranking Member Richard Shelby and other members of the Committee on securities issues. Commissioner Peirce served as counsel to SEC Commissioner Paul S. Atkins. She also worked as a Staff Attorney in the SEC’s Division of Investment Management. Commissioner Peirce was an associate at Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering (now WilmerHale) and clerked for Judge Roger Andewelt on the Court of Federal Claims.
Commissioner Peirce earned her bachelor’s degree in Economics from Case Western Reserve University and her JD from Yale Law School.
Michael J. Marks Professor of Law, University of Chicago Law School
M. Todd Henderson is the Michael J. Marks Professor of Law at the University of Chicago Law School. Professor Henderson’s research interests include corporations, securities regulation, and law and economics. He has taught classes ranging from Banking Regulation to Torts to American Indian Law.
Professor Henderson received an engineering degree cum laude from Princeton University in 1993. He worked for several years designing and building dams in California before matriculating at the Law School. While at the Law School, Todd was an editor of the Law Review and captained the Law School's all-University champion intramural football team. He graduated magna cum laude in 1998 and was elected to the Order of the Coif. Following law school, Todd served as clerk to the Hon. Dennis Jacobs of the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. He then practiced appellate litigation at Kirkland & Ellis in Washington, DC, and was an engagement manager at McKinsey & Company in Boston, where he specialized in counseling telecommunications and high-tech clients on business and regulatory strategy.
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The Iowa Lawyers Chapter
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