Practice Expertise

  • Banking and Finance
  • Consumer Financial Compliance and Litigation
  • Community Banks
  • Corporate

Areas of Practice

  • Banking and Finance
  • Community Banks
  • Consumer Financial Compliance and Litigation
  • Corporate
  • Capital Markets and Securities
  • Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG)
  • Financial Institutions Corporate and ...
  • Latin America
  • Mergers and Acquisitions
  • Public Finance
  • Sustainability and ESG
  • Transaction Processing
  • Transactional ESOP
  • View More

Profile

Heather’s practice focuses on financial institutions.

Heather’s practice focuses on corporate and regulatory representation of small to large regional and national financial institution franchises. She has counseled institutions on M&A transactions, as well as provided representation on securities offerings, capital planning, and corporate restructuring. She also advises financial institutions and financial service providers on emerging regulatory and compliance issues, mostly recently related to high-risk customers and Fintech opportunities.

Relevant Experience

Strategic business planning:

  • Structuring and raising equity and debt through public or private offerings.
  • Shareholder matters including share repurchases/tender offers, responses to activist investors and related corporate governance planning.
  • Structure changes and expansionary activities such as de novo formations, charter conversions, holding company formations, expansion of existing lines of business (trust, insurance, securities and non-banking activities).

Acquisition transactions:

  • Advises clients on all matters related to the acquisition or sale of existing financial institutions and their nonbank subsidiaries and the acquisition, sale, establishment and relocation of branch offices.
  • Mergers and acquisitions of banks with nonbank entities, such as mortgage companies and Fintechs, and investments in banks by third parties.
  • Awarded a top legal ranking in the U.S. for the 13th year in a row in SNL Financial’s league tables for bank and thrift legal advisers. (2019)

Corporate Governance:

  • Advises boards of directors in connection with corporate governance, shareholder activism, and other fiduciary duty matters.
  • Management planning, incentive compensation, corporate succession matters and board advisory services.

Regulatory Compliance:

  • Advises clients on a broad variety of bank regulatory and compliance matters, including consumer compliance, third party risk, compliance management systems, incentive compensation, high-risk customers, transactions with affiliates and other regulatory and compliance matters.
  • Response to formal and informal administrative actions and supervisory issues.
  • Advises banks and Fintechs on risk management and compliance, including implementation of tailored compliance management systems.

Bar Admissions

  • District of Columbia
  • Texas
  • Virginia

Education
BS, The College of William & Mary, 1996

Areas of Practice

  • Banking and Finance
  • Community Banks
  • Consumer Financial Compliance and Litigation
  • Corporate
  • Capital Markets and Securities
  • Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG)
  • Financial Institutions Corporate and Regulatory
  • Latin America
  • Mergers and Acquisitions
  • Public Finance
  • Sustainability and ESG
  • Transaction Processing
  • Transactional ESOP

Professional Career

Significant Accomplishments
  • Strategic business planning: Advises clients on strategic opportunities designed to enhance or protect shareholder value, including structuring and raising equity and debt through public or private offerings, or Subchapter S restructuring, share repurchases/tender offers, charter conversions, holding company formations, expansion of existing financial lines of business (trust, insurance, securities and non-banking activities), and corporate succession matters.
  • Acquisition transactions: Advises clients on all matters related to the acquisition or sale of existing financial institutions (including shell charters), and the acquisition, sale, establishment and relocation of branch offices.
  • Regulatory Compliance: Advises clients on a broad variety of bank regulatory and securities compliance matters, including response to formal SEC reporting and compliance (including Sarbanes-Oxley Act), blue sky issues related to consumer compliance, vendor management, Bank Secrecy Act and anti-money laundering compliance, response to formal and informal administrative actions, Regulation O, transactions with affiliates and other general compliance matters.
  • ESOP: Assisted with ESOP transactions for public and private companies to infuse equity, manage corporate succession and restructure corporate groups.


Professional Associations
  • Member, American Bar Association, Banking Law Committee
  • Member, Virginia Bankers Association
  • Member, Women in Housing and Finance, Inc.


Articles

  • Supervisory and Resolution Reponses to Ongoing Bank Failures, Westlaw Journal – Bank & Lender Liability
  • Proposed Regulations on Incentive-Based Compensation Provide Guidance for All Financial Institutions
  • The FDIC Adds to the Cost of Brokered Deposits with Changes in Assessment Rates
  • ACH: Compliance Burden or Revenue Opportunity? The Wyoming Banker
  • ICBA: Fintech Strategy Roadmap
  • 2018 M&A Reporter – 2017 M&A Year in Review for Bank Mergers
  • Fourteen Steps to Address Third-Party Risk
  • Impact of Re-Proposed Rule on Incentive-Based Compensation on Community Banks
  • ACH: Compliance Burden or Revenue Opportunity?, In Touch – Community Bankers Association of Kansas
  • Attorney General Jeff Sessions Announces Return to Traditional Guidelines for Prosecuting Marijuana Crimes; Rescinds Cole Memo Referenced in FinCEN Guidance
  • FinCEN Expands Customer Due Diligence Requirements
  • “NCUA Issues Guidance on Banking Hemp,” The Banking Law Journal
  • Interest Rate Restrictions on Institutions that Are Less than Well-Capitalized, Kentucky Banker
  • Banking Cannabis Business
  • “The Just Right Economy and Bank M&A,” IBAT’s The Texas Independent Banker

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