New York Department of Financial Services Attorney Joins BuckleySandler LLP

WASHINGTON, DC and NEW YORK, NY--(Marketwired - Jan 28, 2016) - BuckleySandler LLP, a premier financial services, government enforcement, and litigation law firm, announced today that Dana V. Syracuse, former Associate General Counsel of the New York Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) and former Assistant Attorney General in the Office of the New York State Attorney General, has joined the firm as Counsel in its New York office. Syracuse will join electronic signature pioneers Margo Tank, Jerry Buckley, and David Whitaker; noted Bank Secrecy Act (BSA)/anti-money laundering (AML) lawyer Michael Zeldin; AML and virtual currencies leader Amy Davine Kim; and cybersecurity and data privacy experts Douglas Gansler and Rena Mears, further enhancing the firm's Digital Commerce, Virtual Currencies, Anti-Money Laundering/Bank Secrecy Act (AML/BSA), and Privacy, Cyber Risk, and Data Security practices.

Syracuse is the second former senior government official to join BuckleySandler this week. Kathleen "Kitty" Ryan, former Deputy Assistant Director for the Office of Regulations at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, also joined as Counsel in the firm's Washington, DC office (Ryan, admitted to practice in PA, is supervised by BuckleySandler Partner, Benjamin Olson).

"Our broad FinTech practice, which covers regulatory, enforcement and transactional matters in digital commerce, virtual currencies, payments, money transmitters, marketplace lending, and privacy and data risk, has grown substantially in response to business innovations and the reactions of legislators, regulators and enforcement agencies," said Andrew L. Sandler, Chairman and Executive Partner of BuckleySandler LLP. "Dana's experience at the New York Department of Financial Services and the Office of the New York Attorney General will deepen our already strong bench and provide our clients the knowledge of an attorney who has been involved in several key regulatory and enforcement developments impacting this emerging growth area within the financial services industry."

While at the NYDFS, Syracuse helped oversee the Department's strategy regarding emerging payment systems, virtual currency, and blockchain technology, the drafting of New York State's BitLicense virtual currency regulation, and the chartering of New York State based virtual currency exchanges. He also worked extensively with other states, through organizations such as the Conference of State Bank Supervisors, on the development of state and federal regulations and standards governing cybersecurity, money transmitters, emerging payment systems, and virtual currency market participants. He also helped develop the NYDFS strategy for the review of cyber security standards of its regulated institutions, oversaw the revamp of the NYDFS cybersecurity examination process, helped implement targeted risk assessments of its regulated institutions' cyber preparedness, and took steps to assess the cybersecurity risks presented to the banking and insurance industries and those posed by third-party vendors. Before joining the NYDFS, Mr. Syracuse served as Assistant Attorney General, Taxpayer Protection Division, in the Office of the New York State Attorney General.

"BuckleySandler is in a unique position as a leading law firm for traditional and emerging financial services companies. I am looking forward to applying my cybersecurity, virtual currency, money transmitter, anti-money laundering and government enforcement background to the firm's cutting-edge work," said Syracuse.

Prior to joining the NYDFS, Mr. Syracuse served as Assistant Attorney General, Taxpayer Protection Division, in the Office of the New York State Attorney General. He is a frequent speaker on banking regulation issues, cybersecurity, emerging payment systems, virtual currency regulation, and the New York False Claims Act. He received his J.D. from Brooklyn Law School and his B.S. from New York University.

Syracuse photo available for download: http://bit.ly/DanaSyracuse

ABOUT BUCKLEYSANDLER: BuckleySandler LLP provides premier legal counsel to protect and support the nation's leading financial services institutions and corporations, and individual clients. With more than 150 lawyers in Washington, DC, Los Angeles, New York, Chicago and London, we offer a full range of litigation, transactional, compliance, and regulatory services. "The best at what they do in the country." (Chambers USA). Online: www.buckleysandler.com | Twitter: https://twitter.com/BuckleySandler.