(NEW YORK) Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP announced today that attorney Gary DeWaal is joining the firm's Financial Services practice in New York as special counsel. Mr. DeWaal is a financial services industry veteran who has more than 30 years of experience working on legal and regulatory matters. He served for many years as a Senior Managing Director, Group General Counsel and global Executive Committee member of Newedge, one of the largest brokers of exchange-traded derivatives in the world.

"Having someone with Gary's extensive regulatory knowledge, as well as in-house and government experience, join our team is tremendously valuable as it further strengthens the firm's resources in the financial services regulatory arena," said Vincent A.F. Sergi, Katten Chairman.

At Newedge—created in 2008 after a merger between the Fimat and Calyon Financial Groups—Mr. DeWaal oversaw the worldwide Legal, Compliance, Financial Crimes Prevention and Regulatory Development departments for several years before leaving to start his own consulting firm specializing in financial services regulatory matters. Prior to the existence of Newedge, Mr. DeWaal worked for Fimat, which he joined in 1995, and at Brody White & Company, where for nine years he served in the various roles of president, general counsel, head of Compliance, head of Operations and head of Internal Audit. Previously, Gary was a senior trial attorney with the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s Division of Enforcement in New York, and worked at Mudge Rose Guthrie & Alexander, a Wall Street corporate law firm. For many years Mr. DeWaal was an adjunct professor at Brooklyn Law School; he is currently a member of the practitioner faculty for the State University of New York at Buffalo Law School.

Mr. DeWaal authors a popular weekly blog called "Bridging the Week," which recaps the top financial and regulatory news of the week in a concise, meaningful way. This blog will be continued and expanded at Katten. 

"The insight and wealth of knowledge Gary brings is the result of his immense experience over 30 years in diverse legal roles in-house, in private practice, at the CFTC and also running his own business," said Arthur Hahn, global co-chair of Katten's Financial Services practice. "Gary's weekly blog update is a practical and informative resource that hits on the key global regulatory issues impacting the financial services industry. We're glad that he is bringing it to Katten as we know it will continue to be a dependable, timely source of information for our clients and others."

In 2010, Mr. DeWaal was selected as one of the top five general counsels in the world (in a competition among 3,000 general counsels) by the International Law Office in association with the Association of Corporate Counsel. He currently serves as a special advisor to the Board of Directors, and a member of the Executive Committee of the Law and Compliance Division, of the Futures Industry Association, as well as a member of the Technology Advisory Committee of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Additionally, he is a member of the Executive Committee of the Institute of Financial Markets, a nonprofit foundation that promotes industry education.

While pursuing his MBA and JD degrees, Mr. DeWaal was a stringer for The New York Times.