Brian P. Brooks—former Acting US Comptroller of the Currency—Rejoins O’Melveny
September 12, 2023
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
LOS ANGELES—September 12, 2023—O’Melveny announced today that Brian P. Brooks, former Acting US Comptroller of the Currency and prominent banking and fintech executive, has rejoined the firm as a partner in its Financial Services Practice Group and Fintech Industry Group.
Brooks, an O’Melveny partner from 2003-2011, has held a host of high-profile roles in government and the private sector over the past decade. As Acting US Comptroller of the Currency, Brooks served as the chief executive of the federal regulatory agency that oversees the national banking system. He also has served as a member of the Board of the FDIC and a voting member of the Financial Stability Oversight Council. In the private sector, Brooks’s experience in banking and fintech led him to several executive leadership positions, including: vice chairman of OneWest Bank; general counsel (and later board member) of Fannie Mae; chief legal officer of Coinbase; CEO of Bitfury; and a partner of Valor Capital Group.
Brooks now brings his unmatched regulatory, advisory, and litigation experience back to O’Melveny, where he will provide counsel to a wide array of financial services and fintech clients, including major banks, marketplace lenders, payments companies, mortgage originators and servicers, specialty finance companies, private funds, cryptocurrency companies, and fintech innovators.
“Brian has proudly furthered O’Melveny’s storied tradition of public service, and he is recognized as a visionary leader in the financial services and fintech arenas,” said O’Melveny chair Bradley J. Butwin, who added: “Brian is uniquely qualified to help our clients adapt to the fast-evolving global financial landscape. His brilliance, deep experience, and regulatory insights will be immediate assets to the firm. We’re delighted to welcome him home.”
“I was honored to serve as Acting US Comptroller of the Currency and help guide our banking system through the uncertainties of the COVID-19 pandemic and the explosion of financial innovation that accelerated in that era. And now I’m thrilled to return ‘home’ to O’Melveny—the firm where I started my career,” said Brooks. “O’Melveny’s reputation for providing superior service to clients in the financial services, banking, and fintech sectors is second to none. I’m excited to reunite with my friends and former colleagues and to contribute to the firm’s elite Financial Services and Fintech teams.”
As Acting US Comptroller of the Currency during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020-2021, Brooks helped shape consequential federal policy on:
- pandemic-era bank liquidity;
- audit requirements for publicly listed companies based in China;
- national bank preemption;
- bank-fintech partnerships;
- cryptocurrency risk management; and
- fair access to financial services.
Brooks also led federal efforts to modernize the national bank charter, expand the scope of marketplace lending partnerships, reform and modernize the Community Reinvestment Act, and define the scope of permissible cryptocurrency activities. In addition, he founded Project REACh (Roundtable for Economic Access and Change), a partnership of large bank CEOs, fintech founders, minority depository institutions, and civil rights organizations dedicated to identifying and correcting structural barriers to financial inclusion for underserved Americans.
Brooks came to O’Melveny in 1994, joined the partnership in 2003, managed the Washington, DC office, and founded the firm’s Financial Services Practice Group. Among his numerous achievements, he helped negotiate the largest financial privacy settlement in history and played a leading role in crafting the banking industry’s response to the 2010-11 foreclosure crisis. Brooks also represented Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan and other clients before the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission.
Brooks’s arrival further reflects O’Melveny’s commitment to bolstering the firm’s growing roster of talented financial services and fintech regulatory advisors. Along with Brooks, in the past year, the firm has welcomed AnnaLou Tirol, former Deputy Director of the US Department of the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, and Jarryd Anderson, a former policy advisor at the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.
Brooks is also the latest high-ranking government official to return to O’Melveny. In April, partner Ron Klain, former White House Chief of Staff under President Joe Biden, rejoined the firm. And in 2021, partner Greg Jacob returned to the firm after serving as Counsel to Vice President Mike Pence.
Brooks earned his B.A. cum laude from Harvard University. He earned his J.D. with honors from the University of Chicago School of Law, where he was a member of the law review. He clerked for the Honorable Danny J. Boggs of the Sixth Circuit US Court of Appeals.
About O’Melveny
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Contact:
Brandon Jacobsen
O’Melveny & Myers LLP
+1 213 430 8024
bjacobsen@omm.com
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