Bill Mayer is a partner in the firm’s Business Law Department and a member of its Financial Services Group. Mr. Mayer serves as corporate and regulatory general counsel for a number of publicly held financial institutions and financial institution holding companies, as well as a number of community banking organizations. In that role, he advises banking organizations and their boards of directors on a range of corporate, regulatory, governance and transactional matters. Mr. Mayer also serves as co-chair of Goodwin Procter’s Pro Bono Committee.

Work for Clients

Mr. Mayer handles a wide variety of transactions for the firm’s banking and financial services clients including mergers, acquisitions, public and private offerings of debt and equity securities, stock conversions, bank and holding company formations, and other reorganizations of financial institutions and holding companies. He also regularly advises foreign and U.S. clients on bank regulatory matters involving state and federal law, the Federal Reserve Board, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Comptroller of the Currency, the Office of Thrift Supervision and other state and federal regulatory agencies. Mr. Mayer has also served as legal advisor to Bulgaria’s Central Bank on issues relating to banking sector restructuring and legal reform as well as to Jordan’s Central Bank on electronic commerce legislation. He has also participated in a series of meetings sponsored by the International Monetary Fund and regional regulatory authorities in the Middle East and the Caribbean to advise central bank regulators on the legal and regulatory framework for supervising complex financial organizations.

Professional Activities

Mr. Mayer is a member of the banking law committees of the Boston and American Bar Associations. He is listed in Chambers USA: America's Leading Lawyers for Business and The Best Lawyers in America.

Publications/Presentations

Mr. Mayer frequently lectures on banking and financial service topics to other legal and banking groups. He was an Editor of the Virginia Law Review at Virginia Law School.

Professional Experience

Mr. Mayer has taught bank and bank holding company mergers and acquisitions at the Morin Center for Banking and Financial Law Studies at Boston University School of Law; he also serves on the Center’s Board of Advisors.

He served as law clerk to the Honorable William H. Timbers, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, for the 1977-1978 term.

Bar and Court Admissions

Mr. Mayer is admitted to practice in Massachusetts and the District of Columbia.

Education

J.D., Virginia Law School, 1977
M.S., University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, 1974
A.B., Dartmouth College, 1973 (summa cum laude)