Prominent Securities Industry Attorney Scot Draeger Joins Bernstein Shur

Portland, Maine – Scot E. Draeger, a prominent securities industry attorney, has joined Bernstein Shur as a shareholder in its Portland office.

Draeger, a former Senior Legal Counsel to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in Washington D.C., left his post as Director and Corporate Counsel at Citi Markets & Banking to join the firm on July 3.
At Bernstein Shur, Draeger will focus his practice on representing securities industry and capital markets participants in regulatory, compliance, enforcement, and transactional matters, with an emphasis on counseling the investment management industry, including mutual funds, hedge funds, investment advisers, fund industry service providers, and diversified financial institutions. With Draeger’s arrival, the firm will expand the Business Law Practice to include a Securities and Financial Services Industry Practice Group.

Draeger served at the SEC from 2000-2006 as Senior Counsel in the SEC’s Office of General Counsel, and subsequently as Legal Counselor to SEC Commissioner Roel C. Campos. While serving at the SEC, Draeger advised the Commission on legal and policy issues raised by rulemaking, enforcement, and legislative matters, with a focus on matters involving corporate governance, investment management, corporation finance, and enforcement policy. Draeger played a key role in advising the Commission on its implementation of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. He also counseled the Commission in its responses to Congressional and Executive inquiries and its efforts in advising foreign governments on securities regulation and agency independence issues.

At Citigroup, Draeger provided regulatory and transactional counseling within the investment bank and oversaw the legal department for Citi Fund Services, a leading provider of services to the global investment fund and asset management industries.

“I am grateful for having had the opportunity to serve both the SEC and one of the world’s largest and most diversified financial institutions,” Draeger said. “I am excited about joining Bernstein Shur, a firm with New England roots and international reach that has a rich history of providing innovative and conscientious counseling.”

“It is rare for a Maine-based firm to recruit an attorney with the breadth, depth, and scope of securities law and mutual fund compliance expertise that Scot has,” said Charles Miller, managing shareholder of the firm. “Scot is joining an immensely talented Business Law Practice Group whose depth will be enhanced by Scot’s presence. We are delighted that he is joining our firm.”

“We are very excited to have Scot join us; we believe that Scot's expertise and experience in financial regulatory markets and matters will be extremely valuable to our clients and to other attorneys in the group," said John Carpenter, chair of the firm’s Business Law Practice Group.

Draeger, who is relocating to Maine from Hampton, N.H., is an honors graduate of the University of Cincinnati and received his law degree from the University of Maine School of Law.

Bernstein Shur is one of northern New England’s largest multi-service law firms, with more than 90 attorneys in offices in Maine and New Hampshire. Founded in 1915, the firm provides practical and innovative counsel in the areas of business law, litigation, and municipal law to clients throughout the region and around the world. Bernstein Shur is Maine's exclusive member of Lex Mundi, the world's leading association of independent law firms. More information is available at bernsteinshur.com.

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