Chris Gattuso focuses her practice on corporate and securities matters, financial institution regulatory matters, mergers and acquisitions and nonprofit organizations. She provides advice on corporate governance matters, public and private securities offerings, corporate reorganizations, strategic alliances and mergers and acquisitions. She serves as counsel to financial institutions on mutual to stock conversions, mutual holding company reorganizations and stock issuances, private placement offerings and other types of equity and debt offerings.

Ms. Gattuso advises private investors, including private equity funds, hedge funds and foreign investors, in structuring investment vehicles to acquire controlling and non-controlling investments in financial institutions and their holding companies. She also advises boards of directors and board committees on corporate governance matters, including Sarbanes-Oxley and best practices. Ms. Gattuso advises financial institutions on a wide range of bank regulatory matters, and has represented mutual financial institutions on a variety of banking and corporate matters.

Ms. Gattuso represents financial institutions and their holding companies on regulatory enforcement matters and appeals of material supervisory actions. She represents financial institutions in connection with fair lending inquiries and Department of Justice fair lending investigations. She also counsels organizers of federal and state de novo financial institutions including "shelf charters," with respect to the regulatory process and the banking, corporate and securities law issues that arise in connection with the de novo process. Ms. Gattuso's experience with de novo financial institutions ranges from typical community banking institutions to more complex de novo financial institutions such as a de novo venture bank and a de novo thrift formed by a national trade association.

Ms. Gattuso advises corporate clients on matters relating to privacy and the use of social media by companies and their employees.

Ms. Gattuso also advises nonprofit organizations, including trade associations, on general corporate law and federal tax matters. Ms. Gattuso has spoken at various banking conferences and seminars on corporate law, financial institutions law and regulation and privacy and social media.

Prior to joining the firm, Ms. Gattuso served as Regulatory Counsel with the Regulations and Legislation Division of Federal Home Loan Bank Board, was an attorney for the Division of Market Regulation at the Securities and Exchange Commission, and prior to that worked at the Office of General Counsel at the Department of Commerce and the Department of Housing and Urban Development.