White & Case Picks Up Leader of Milbank’s Fintech Practice (1)

White & Case is continuing expansion efforts in the new year with the addition of Milbank’s former regulatory and fintech practice head Douglas Landy.

Landy joins White & Case as a partner in its global financial services regulatory practice, a key part of its global debt finance work.

“As the demand for financial regulatory advice continues to grow, we are delighted to add an outstanding talent such as Doug,” said Eric Leicht, head of White & Case’s global debt finance practice, in a statement. “Doug is one of the most experienced and sought-after regulatory and fintech lawyers in the U.S. market.”

Landy, who began his career at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, joined Milbank in 2013 from Allen & Overy, where he was the head of the U.S. financial services regulatory practice.

He specializes in banking and securities law and has represented global banks and financial institutions in U.S. regulatory matters, including dealings with the Federal Reserve and U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Landy also advises clients on capital requirements, blockchain and cryptocurrencies, bank insolvency, and the Volcker Rule, which created restrictions to bank risk-taking as a part of the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act. Following Dodd-Frank’s adoption, Landy represented a group of more than two dozen foreign banks challenging the proposed Volcker Rule provisions.

The move to White & Case presented Landy with opportunities to take advantage of what is both happening in the market and in his practice, he said in an interview with Bloomberg Law.

As practices become more international, Landy said he wanted to answer questions that weren’t just U.S. focused and to do deals that crossed borders. White & Case’s global platform offered him that opportunity, he said.

“Economic driving factors are going global, while the regulatory legal factors are becoming increasingly nationalistic,” Landy said. “So to deal with that dichotomy, you have to have the ability to be everywhere, or at least in the most important places.”

In addition, the convergence of his practices across financial services, regulatory and fintech spaces, and his view on where the practices are headed and how to best service clients, is mirrored by the expertise and build up White & Case is doing, Landy said.

Landy’s arrival at White & Case deepens the firm’s bench strength for clients that are looking to adopt new and emerging financial technologies, White & Case’s regional section head of Americas banking Jake Mincemoyer said in a statement.

White & Case has been busy on the lateral hiring front despite the uncertainties that the coronavirus pandemic presented over the past year for many law firms.

Last year the firm brought on Holland & Knight partner Germaine Gurr to its global mergers and acquisitions practice and added a four-lawyer team from Winston & Strawn to its capital markets practice in New York.

White & Case also built out its restructuring group in 2020, adding former Sidley Austin bankruptcy practice co-leaders Jessica Boelter and Bojan Guzina, as well as Sidley partner Andrew O’Neill and associate Matthew Linder. It also hired Keith Wofford, who had co-chaired Ropes & Gray’s restructuring practice, and former Ropes & Gray partner Stephen Moeller-Sally.