Weil Broadens Its Financial Regulatory and Beltway Presence
NEW YORK, April 22, 2010 – LawFuel.com – Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP has announced that Heath Tarbert has joined the firm’s Corporate Department as counsel. He will practice out of the Washington, DC office. Mr. Tarbert comes to Weil from the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, where he served as Special Counsel. Mr. Tarbert was a lead expert and negotiator on the effort to enact comprehensive financial reform legislation with particular focus on the prudential regulation of banks, thrifts, non-bank financial institutions and their holding companies, as well as measures aimed at the reduction of systemic risk in the U.S. financial system.
“Heath has made an invaluable contribution to the Committee’s work on financial regulatory reform,” Ranking Member Richard Shelby commented, “his expertise and dedication will be sorely missed. I am grateful for his service and wish him all the best as he takes on a new challenge.”
“Heath was very collegial and constructive in working with our side of the aisle,” Amy Friend, Chief Counsel for Chairman Christopher Dodd, added, “we will miss him and wish him well in his new ventures.”
From August 2008 to January 2009, Mr. Tarbert served as Associate Counsel to the President of the United States and was responsible for legal issues relating to the financial markets. He was also designated counsel to the National Economic Council and the Council of Economic Advisers, serving as the White House legal liaison to the Treasury Department, the Federal Reserve Board, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and the Federal Housing Finance Agency. The timing of Mr. Tarbert’s service to the White House thrust him into the center of legal decision-making during the financial crisis that intensified after the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings in September 2008.
“We are very pleased to have Heath on board,” added Michael Lyle, managing partner of the firm’s Washington office, “he brings an extraordinary knowledge of the current regulatory landscape and will be a vital resource for our financial industry clients – including banks, hedge funds, and private equity firms – as that landscape evolves.”
Mr. Tarbert’s arrival at Weil marks the third time in just over twelve months that the firm’s Washington office has landed a top name from government. Former Deputy Counsel to the President and federal prosecutor William A. Burck joined the firm early in 2009. Earlier this year, Steven Tyrrell, former Chief of the U.S. Department of Justice’s Fraud Section joined Weil.
Mr. Tarbert began his career as an associate at a large New York-based law firm before leaving private practice to serve as a law clerk to Chief Judge Douglas H. Ginsburg of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Mr. Tarbert later served as a law clerk to Justice Clarence Thomas of the Supreme Court of the United States. He also practiced law as an Attorney-Adviser in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel and recently served as Vice President and Deputy Director of the Committee on Capital Markets Regulation, an independent and nonpartisan 501(c)(3) research organization dedicated to improving the regulation of U.S. capital markets.
About Weil, Gotshal & Manges:
Established in 1975, Weil Gotshal’s Washington, DC office was the firm’s first domestic presence outside of New York. The office houses 30 partners and 81 total attorneys, focused in practice areas ranging from Antitrust and Patent Litigation to International Trade, Products Liability, SEC Disclosure and Securities Regulation, Bankruptcy and Commercial Litigation and Tax.
Weil, Gotshal & Manges (www.weil.com), an international law firm of over 1,200 lawyers, including approximately 300 partners, is headquartered in New York, with offices in Beijing, Boston, Budapest, Dallas, Dubai, Frankfurt, Hong Kong, Houston, London, Miami, Munich, Paris, Prague, Providence, Shanghai, Silicon Valley, Warsaw, Washington, D.C. and Wilmington.
