Reed Smith added depth to its financial services practice recently by hiring Houston partner Christina Vitale away from Morgan Lewis.
Vitale, who made partner at Morgan Lewis in 2016, focuses her practice on financial services class actions, banking enforcement actions and consumer protection issues. She has represented clients before the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Office of the Comptroller and state attorneys general.
Leaders at Reed Smith said Vitale’s financial services class action litigation and regulatory practice fits well with the firm and supports its efforts to build one of the top consumer banking regulatory and litigation practices in the country.
“Houston – and Texas in general – has long been an area of strategic importance for both bank and non-bank lenders,” Kenneth Broughton, managing partner of Reed Smith’s Houston office, said in a statement. “As such, our clients with a presence in the region expect their outside counsel to be able to provide both local and national legal advice on regulatory and litigation matters.”
Outside of her billable practice, Vitale has scored a number of significant victories for her clients in pro bono matters. She has successfully appealed the denial of benefits for a World War II veteran before the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims; helped draft a clemency petition to President Barack Obama for a nonviolent drug offender faced with a life sentence and successfully argued a motion to vacate the life sentence; and represented a juvenile in a criminal resentencing who had originally been sentenced to an unconstitutional mandatory life term in 1999.