Bio

F. John Podvin is a partner in the firm with over 30 years of regulatory agency, law firm, and corporate experience. He is based in Dallas, Texas, where he works nationally with the firm’s clients. vnHis practice areas include banking and financial services, corporate governance, financial crisis advisory and litigation, financial regulatory, government relations strategy, regulatory enforcement actions and investigations, and mergers and acquisitions. As outside counsel, Mr. Podvin works closely with the firm’s banking and financial services clients in combating money laundering, cyber security and data breach issues, and developing new products and services, including electronic banking and internet services. Mr. Podvin advises corporate boards, board committees, management teams and individuals on federal and state banking laws. He has served his clients as a primary liaison to federal and state bank regulators. Mr. Podvin is part of the firm’s nationally recognized team of banking and financial institutions lawyers who provide comprehensive legal services to financial institutions. Mr. Podvin represented a former Senior Bank Secrecy Act Officer at a bank in a criminal investigation brought by the U.S. Department of Justice in the Southern District of New York and in the concurrent civil investigations brought by the OCC and the Federal Reserve Board as well as in the subsequent civil investigation brought by FinCEN. He has also represented both individuals and banks in investigations brought by the FBI, the U.S. Secret Service, the FDIC Inspector General’s Office, the FDIC, the OCC and the Texas Department of Banking. Previously, Mr. Podvin was in-house with an NYSE-listed parent company to a $16B bank. There, he advised the board and management on legal compliance issues, anti-money laundering, fair lending practices, affiliate transactions, ethics, privacy, insider lending, data security, and legal lending limits. Serving as Deputy General Counsel and Chief Compliance Officer, Mr. Podvin was responsible for the development of enterprise-wide policies. He supervised and managed investigations triggered by consumer complaints and calls to the ethics hotline as required by Sarbanes-Oxley. He also served as a member of the public company’s disclosure committee. Mr. Podvin was elected Chair of the Texas Business Law Foundation for a two-year term from 2021-2022. In 2018, he was elected Co-Chair of the Board of Directors of the North Texas Chapter of the Association of Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialists (ACAMS). ACAMS is the largest international membership organization dedicated to enhancing the knowledge, skills and expertise of AML/CTF and financial crime detection and prevention professionals. He has been named to the annual list of The Best Lawyers in America© every year since 2014 and Best Lawyers® recognized Mr. Podvin as a 2014, 2019, and 2023 “Lawyer of the Year” for his practice in Financial Services Regulation Law in Dallas, Texas. Best Lawyers is based on an exhaustive peer-review survey and is regarded as a definitive guide to legal excellence. Mr. Podvin was honored with a listing in Who’s Who Legal: Banking 2022 in the category of Banking – Regulatory. Who’s Who Legal (WWL) is one of the world’s leading directories of legal practitioners and WWL: Banking provides an in-depth guide to the leading banking lawyers around the world. Mr. Podvin was named to Who’s Who Legal (WWL) Thought Leaders 2023 in two categories, GBRR (Global Banking Regulation Review) and USA-Banking-Regulatory. He was also named to WWL’s Global Leader 2023 list in the area of Banking-Regulatory. These awards recognize some of the foremost banking regulatory lawyers in the U.S. and internationally. Mr. Podvin has an AV® Preeminent™ Peer Review Rating with Martindale-Hubbell®, the highest rating in legal ability and ethical standards. He is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin Law School and has a Bachelor of Arts, Economics from Georgetown University.