Morgan Lewis today announced that Merri Jo Gillette—who served as Director of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) Chicago Regional Office from 2004 to 2013—will join the firm as a partner in its Litigation Practice beginning in September, resident in Chicago.
As Director of the SEC’s Chicago office, Ms. Gillette oversaw the enforcement and examination programs of the agency’s second largest regional office staffed with more than 250 employees. The Chicago office enforces the federal securities laws and conducts regulatory examinations of securities industry firms in nine Midwestern states. Under Ms. Gillette’s leadership, the Chicago office brought a multitude of significant enforcement matters, many of which involved extensive coordination with criminal authorities and resulted in parallel criminal indictments. She frequently collaborated with other regulators, including the U.S. Commodities Futures Trading Commission, federal banking, state securities, and foreign regulators. Prior to being named to this most recent SEC post, Ms. Gillette spent 18 years in the SEC’s Philadelphia office, where she focused on enforcement and litigation matters, ris ing to the position of the office’s Associate Director of Enforcement.
Ms. Gillette has led investigations in a wide variety of subject areas, including:
- financial and accounting disclosures by public companies and their executives;
- insider trading by both foreign and domestic purchasers;
- mutual fund valuation and pricing issues;
- investment adviser issues, including disclosure of fees, performance advertising, disclosure of conflicts of interest, marking the close, and custody rules;
- fiduciary duty of investment advisers in context of public pension fund investments;
- reinvestment of municipal bond offering proceeds by invest ment adviser on behalf of municipalities;
- broker-dealer supervision issues;
- sale of residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS); and
- registration and disclosure requirements relating to securities offerings.
“Merri Jo’s addition will fortify Morgan Lewis’s securities enforcement capabilities at a time of increasing regulatory scrutiny of financial institutions and public companies,” said Firm Chair Francis M. Milone. “Her addition enables us to expand our enforcement team to Chicago, complementing our notable enforcement presence on both coasts,” he added.
“After a long career at the SEC, Morgan Lewis is a natural fit for me,” Ms. Gillette said. “The firm has an established securities litigation practice, strong white collar and investment management practices, and a client base that includes many public companies and financial institutions.”
Ms. Gillette will focus on representing financial institutions, corporations, boards of directors, and individuals in examinations, investigations, enforcement actions, and other proceedings before financial services regulators and other federal and state law enforcement and regulatory authorities. She will also provide counsel to clients on internal investigations, developing effective compliance programs, risk and crisis management, and corporate governance issues.
“Merri Jo’s high degree of experience and knowledge in key areas of SEC enforcement including insider trading, investment adviser activity, and corporate and accounting fraud-a renewed area of SEC focus-will be highly sought after by clients on Wall Street and elsewhere,” said Jami McKeon, Leader of Morgan Lewis’s Litigation Practice. “She will provide clients insight into the most current thinking and practices of the SEC enforcement staff, which have changed considerably in recent years.”
“We enthusiastically welcome Merri Jo to the Chicago office, where her extensive knowledge of securities laws and regulatory practice will prove invaluable to the high concentration of broker-dealers, three major clearing organizations and the operations of a number of the nation’s largest corporations in the Midwest,” said Scott Schutte, Managing Partner of the Chicago office. “Merri Jo’s experience in mutual fund and investment adviser and broker-dealer enforcement, examination and regulation also offers attractive synergies with the strong team of Investment Management Practice attorneys in our office.”
Ms. Gillette joins a team of nearly 700 trial lawyers working from 20 offices around the world. Morgan Lewis’s Securities Enforcement Practice represents financial institutions, public companies, and senior executives from all major industries in regulatory investigations and enforcement proceedings conducted by the SEC, the U.S. Department of Justice, other governmental agencies, and all major self-regulatory organizations, including the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority.
