Mr Mike Whalen > Goodwin > Washington DC, United States > Lawyer Profile
Goodwin Offices
901 NEW YORK AVENUE, NW
WASHINGTON DC 20001
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
United States
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Mr Mike Whalen
Position
Partner / Co-Leader Fintech
Career
Mike Whalen is a co-leader of the firm’s FinTech practice. He is a trusted advisor to his Fintech clients, counselling on regulatory, transactional and enforcement matters.
Mike’s practice covers all tech-enabled consumer and small business financial products and services, including payments and money transmission, any loan product, deposits, alternative funding arrangements (e.g., early wage access services, home co-investing products, factoring, merchant cash advances) and virtual currencies.
Mike’s compliance practice covers product and service development, documentation, compliance, and state licensing.
Mike does transactional work on the products and services he advises on, including lending, payments and deposits banking as a service arrangements, program agreements, loan and receivables sales, servicing agreements, payment processing agreements, co-branded credit card deals, and lead generation agreements.
Mike also represents his clients in state regulator inquiries and actions.
Education
J.D., 1999 The George Washington University Law School (high honors) / B.A., 1987 Syracuse University (magna cum laude)
Lawyer Rankings
United States > Finance > Fintech
Goodwin has a strong focus on fintech, blockchain and digital currencies, with a comprehensive offering that includes transactional, regulatory and litigation advice. Clients consider the firm ‘extremely adept at working with the fintech startup world‘ and is able to ‘distil complex regulations into tangible actions‘. This extends to the crypto space, where it has ‘the rare ability to act as the generalist corporate counsel as well as to advise on all regulatory matters‘. The firm is also seeing a growing amount of insurtech and metaverse-related work. Lead partners include Mitzi Chang who co-chairs the fintech group with Scott Joachim in Silicon Valley, and the ‘always positive and helpful‘ Mike Whalen in Washington DC. Other key partners on the digital currency and blockchain side include Grant Fondo (Silicon Valley) and Karen Ubell, who is ‘among the most experienced, thoughtful, and versatile cryptocurrency lawyers in the nation‘. DC-based counsel Juliana Gerrick is ‘consistently able to distill complex and proprietary processes‘. In Boston, Kimberly Monty Holzel holds the distinction of having previously worked at the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. All partners based in San Francisco unless otherwise stated.
Lawyer Rankings
Top Tier Firm Rankings
- Finance > Financial services regulation
- Industry focus > Cannabis
- Intellectual property > Patents: licensing
- Real estate > Real estate investment trusts (REITs)
- Media, technology and telecoms > Technology transactions
- M&A/corporate and commercial > Venture capital and emerging companies
Firm Rankings
- Finance > Capital markets: equity offerings
- Industry focus > Education
- Labor and employment > ERISA litigation
- Finance > Fintech
- Healthcare > Life sciences
- Dispute resolution > M&A litigation: defense
- M&A/corporate and commercial > M&A: middle-market ($500m-999m)
- Investment fund formation and management > Mutual/registered/exchange-traded funds
- Dispute resolution > Securities litigation: defense
- Finance > Capital markets: debt offerings
- International Trade > CFIUS
- M&A/corporate and commercial > Corporate governance
- Media, technology and telecoms > Cyber law (including data privacy and data protection)
- Dispute resolution > E-discovery
- Labor and employment > Employee benefits, executive compensation and retirement plans: transactional
- Dispute resolution > Financial services litigation
- Antitrust > Merger control
- Intellectual property > Patents: litigation (full coverage)
- Investment fund formation and management > Private equity funds (including venture capital)
- Dispute resolution > Product liability, mass tort and class action - defense: consumer products (including tobacco)
- Real estate > Real estate
- M&A/corporate and commercial > Shareholder activism
- Intellectual property > Trade secrets (litigation and non-contentious matters)
- Tax > US taxes: non-contentious
- Labor and employment > Workplace and employment counseling
- Labor and employment > Employee benefits, executive compensation and retirement plans: design
- Dispute resolution > Leading trial lawyers
- M&A/corporate and commercial > Private equity buyouts: large deals ($500m+)
- Healthcare > Service providers
- International Trade > Customs, export controls and economic sanctions
- Dispute resolution > Leading trial lawyers
- Finance > Restructuring (including bankruptcy): corporate
- Dispute resolution > Appellate: courts of appeals / Appellate: supreme courts (states and federal)
- Finance > Commercial lending
- Dispute resolution > Corporate investigations and white-collar criminal defense
- Intellectual property > Patents: prosecution (including re-examination and post-grant proceedings)