© 2015 The Texas Lawbook.
By Mark Curriden
FORT WORTH (July 16) – As the top brass for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in Washington, D.C. search for a new director for the agency’s Fort Worth Regional Office, they must decide whether they want a hard-nosed federal prosecutor known for putting corrupt business shysters behind bars, a seasoned financial regulator or a corporate insider who knows the inner workings of the business world.
SEC senior leadership plan to interview the finalists, which include two current SEC officials, a former federal prosecutor and a corporate general counsel, during the next two weeks and a selection is expected by the end of August, according to lawyers familiar with the process.
The SEC’s regional director spot became open in June when David Woodcock, who held the position for nearly four years, left to join Jones Day as a partner.
“This is a job where you have incredible influence in Texas and across the region and it needs someone who really thinks big,” Woodcock said. “The person who gets this job needs to recognize that the position has a lot of power.”
The two front-runners, according to legal insiders, are SEC Associate Director Marshall Gandy and former federal prosecutor Shamoil Shipchandler, who is now a partner at Bracewell & Giuliani in Dallas.
Before joining Bracewell in April 2014, Shipchandler spent a decade prosecuting complex white-collar criminal cases, including individuals and companies involved in securities, mortgage and bank frauds, for the U.S. Attorneys office in the Eastern District of Texas.
Other candidates include Rug Doctor General Counsel Amy Natasha Howell, who was previously an assistant GC at Orix USA Corporation, and Eric Werner, who has been a lawyer at the SEC for 20 years and is an assistant director of enforcement in Fort Worth office.
There is also the potential for a lesser-known sleeper candidate to be chosen, which is what happened when the SEC picked Woodcock for the job in 2011.
“There are some great candidates on the list – no bad options,” says Clay Scheitzach, senior vice president and group counsel at Xerox in Dallas. “Shamoil is considered the leader in the clubhouse, because the trend is for the agency to look outside the SEC.”
Legal experts say that SEC leaders also recognize that the needs of the office have changed since 2011, when certain Fort Worth staff members were under investigation by the SEC’s inspector general for misconduct and were publicly pummeled by Congress for not taking faster action in the Allen Stanford financial scandal in Houston.
“It’s like night and day, comparing the Fort Worth office from 2011 to 2015,” said Toby Galloway, the former lead trial lawyer for the SEC who is now a partner at Kelly, Hart & Hallman in Fort Worth. “We were in the dunking tank and we couldn’t seem to get out.”
Schietzach agrees.
“David Woodcock went in and restored order and public confidence in the Fort Worth office,” he said. “Now, the SEC needs a leader to take the office and the staff to the next level.”
Ed Tomko, a former SEC enforcement lawyer, said the SEC needs to select someone who is a true leader, not just a manager.
“This next director must be willing to take risks – to know when he or she needs to invest money and manpower into an investigation without being afraid that, in the end, it may result in no charges being filed,” said Tomko, who is a lawyer at Dykema Cox Smith in Dallas.
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