Christina Gattuso Bio

Chris Gattuso is the leader of the Financial Institutions Team. She focuses her practice on corporate and securities matters, financial institution regulatory matters, and mergers and acquisitions. Chris’s securities practice includes serving as counsel for both issuers and underwriters in public and private offerings of debt and equity securities and counseling clients on disclosure and other requirements under the federal securities laws. She has represented numerous mutual savings associations in their conversion to stock form or formation of a mutual holding company and related public offerings as well as represented community banks in their initial public offerings. Chris has extensive experience in corporate reorganizations, strategic alliances, joint ventures, and mergers and acquisitions for both public and private financial institutions and other for-profit and nonprofit entities. She also advises boards of directors and board committees of financial institutions and other businesses on corporate governance and fiduciary matters, including ESG and best practices. Chris advises financial institutions on a wide range of regulatory, enforcement, consumer protection, and compliance matters before the federal and state banking agencies, including the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Federal Reserve Board, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, including third party vendor relationships, bank investments in fintech and bank and fintech partnerships. She counsels organizers of federal and state de novo financial institutions with respect to the regulatory process and the banking, corporate, and securities law issues that arise in connection with the de novo process. Chris’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. She also 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 and advises financial institutions as to structuring investments in fintech companies. Chris has published articles and spoken at various conferences and seminars on corporate governance, mergers and acquisitions, securities offerings, financial institutions law and regulation, cybersecurity, bank examination and enforcement, and fair lending. She was recognized in 2021 and the seven years immediately preceding as a Washington D.C. “Super Lawyer” in Securities and Corporate Finance by Super Lawyers magazine. Chris was recognized by The Best Lawyers in America® in 2026 and the eight years immediately preceding for Banking and Finance Law and Financial Services Regulation Law. She was recommended by Legal 500 US in 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025 for Mergers & Acquisitions. She also has led or co-led many of the Financial Institutions team’s merger and acquisition and capital-raising transactions for which the firm has been consistently recognized, including national practice area recognition by Chambers USA (2014–2023). In 2023, Chris was named to the Capital Pro Bono Honor Roll, which recognizes the contributions of those D.C. Bar members who donated 50 hours or more of pro bono service during the previous calendar year. Chris serves as a member of the Firm’s Partnership Committee and the Firm’s Professional Responsibility Committee.