Bingham McCutchen has hired Kenneth A. Kopelman, former head of Bear Stearns fixed-income and derivatives legal groups, and Gerald Russello, former managing director of Bear Stearns legal department. Kopelman joins as a partner, and Russello as of counsel.
At Bear Stearns from 1993 to 2008, Kopelman held several key positions. He was a senior managing director of the legal department where he managed legal and regulatory aspects of the trading, markets and derivatives businesses for the global investment banking and securities firm. He was also a founding member of the firms new products committee and a member of its presidents advisory council. Kopelman was the first lawyer hired to build a legal team to service Bear Stearns newly established derivatives business in 1993.
In the last year, Bingham has built its securities team significantly, specifically in its Washington, D.C., New York, London and Tokyo offices.
Most recently, Bingham announced on Aug. 4 the addition of Geoffrey F. Aronow, former enforcement director of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and former managing shareholder of Heller Ehrmans Washington office, and Margaret Blake, formerly of Winston & Strawn, to Binghams D.C. office. Aside from Aronow and Blake, Joseph Brady, former associate general counsel at the North American Securities Administrators Association (NASAA) and Timothy Nagy, formerly with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) department of regulation, joined as of counsel.
Earlier this year, Steven Howard and Thomas Majewski, formerly of Thacher Proffitt , joined Binghams securities area and investment management practice group in New York. Bingham also added partner Takayasu Koga from the Japanese Securities and Exchange Surveillance Commission to the firms Tokyo office in April.
The law firm also has a financial regulatory practice in London headed by Peter Bibby and Helen Marshall, both of whom were heads of enforcement at the U.K. Financial Services Authority. Christopher Leonard, a former vice president and senior European counsel at State Street Global Advisors, joined the firms London office in June.