Davis Polk & Wardwell today announced that John Douglas will join the firm as a partner in its Financial Institutions Group. He will head its bank regulatory practice, focusing on bank restructuring and resolutions and other issues arising from the current banking and financial crisis.

Mr. Douglas was general counsel of the FDIC during the S&L crisis and is now regarded as one of the leading bank insolvency lawyers in the nation. He has extensive boardroom and other experience across the entire range of bank regulatory matters.

Mr. Douglas is the latest in a string of high-profile former government lawyers to join the firm’s financial institutions practice in less than a year, including former SEC Commissioner Annette Nazareth, former SEC Enforcement Director Linda Chatman Thomsen, former Assistant to the President and White House Staff Secretary Raul Yanes and former acting head of the SEC’s Division of Market Regulation Robert Colby.

“We have experienced strong demand for our financial institutions practice during the financial crisis,” said John R. Ettinger, Davis Polk’s managing partner. “We expect this trend to continue in light of the depth of the financial crisis and the dramatic changes being made to the financial regulatory infrastructure. John is a tremendous addition to our practice at this critical juncture.”

“No lawyer in the country has more experience with troubled or failed banks than John Douglas,” said Randall Guynn, head of the firm’s Financial Institutions Group. “John will strengthen our already leading bank regulatory and M&A practices, which have burgeoned during the financial crisis, just when the focus of most transactions is on troubled or failed banks.”

“Davis Polk has been at the center of the most significant matters in the current financial crisis due to the remarkably high quality of lawyers it has across so many disciplines,” said Douglas. “I have worked with lawyers at Davis Polk for many years. Clearly, we are encountering truly unprecedented developments in the global financial system, and I am thrilled to be joining a firm that has been, and will continue to be, integrally involved in addressing these challenges.”

Davis Polk has represented Morgan Stanley in its conversion to a bank holding company and all of its TARP-related transactions; Citigroup in all of its M&A transactions during the financial crisis, including Smith Barney’s joint venture with Morgan Stanley; the New York Fed and Treasury in their financial assistance and restructuring of AIG; Freddie Mac in its conservatorship by the U.S. government; several private equity firms on proposed investments in troubled or failed banks; and the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association on financial regulatory reform.

Douglas has been involved in some of the most difficult and sensitive matters during the crisis, including advising the boards of directors of Indymac and Bank United; counseling Citigroup with respect to FDIC matters; advising various parties on the fallout from the failure of Washington Mutual; and advising various private equity firms on proposed investments in troubled or failed banks.

Douglas, 58, was FDIC general counsel from 1987 through the end of 1989, working under FDIC Chairman William Seidman. Since then, he has practiced as the head of the financial institutions practices at Alston & Bird and Paul Hastings in Atlanta.