Two Former SEC Officials Return to Texas; Winstead Launches Securities Litigation and Enforcement Practice Group

11 October 2005

To address the needs of clients who face
ever-increasing regulatory scrutiny, Winstead Sechrest & Minick P.C. announced
that Thomas L. Taylor III, former head of the SEC's Houston Branch Office, and
Michael J. Stewart, formerly the Securities and Exchange Commission's (SEC's)
Fort Worth Regional Administrator, are returning to Texas to join Winstead's
newly-formed Securities Litigation and Enforcement Practice Group. Taylor
will be resident in the Firm's Houston office and Stewart in the Dallas
office. Taylor will co-chair the new practice group.
"We have added two attorneys but increased our securities litigation and
regulatory capabilities tenfold," said Shareholder and Head of the Litigation
Section Wayne Bost.
Taylor, a San Antonio native and 1972 University of Texas School of Law
graduate, recently relocated from Los Angeles where he served for a number of
years as head of the litigation practice group in the Los Angeles Office of
global law firm Morgan, Lewis & Bockius. Prior to heading the SEC's Houston
branch office in the 1980's, Taylor served as Assistant General Counsel of the
U.S. Commodities Futures Trading Commission and in the SEC's Office of General
Counsel in Washington.
Taylor brings to Winstead extensive private practice litigation and
enforcement experience having represented public companies and major financial
institutions including Merrill Lynch, Wells Fargo Investments, UBS, Wachovia
and Washington Mutual.
Taylor's securities practice is focused on representation of public
companies and their boards of directors in class actions and law enforcement
proceedings arising under the federal and state securities laws. He regularly
represents national and regional financial services firms in private civil
litigation and arbitration as well as in litigation and enforcement
proceedings involving the SEC, NASD, NYSE and other securities regulatory
bodies. He has been actively involved in representing public company boards
of directors in conducting internal investigations under Sarbanes-Oxley with
respect to financial reporting issues.
Stewart ended a notable 20 year career with the SEC in 1983 as the
administrator of the Los Angeles region where he oversaw SEC enforcement in
California, Nevada, Arizona, and Hawaii. Before that assignment, he was
administrator of the Fort Worth region covering Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas,
Kansas, and Louisiana; and the Boston region, overseeing enforcement in the
New England states. He also served as an SEC Assistant General Counsel in
Washington, D.C., where among other duties, he provided counsel and advice to
commissioners and represented the Commission in a number of cases before the
U.S. Courts of Appeal. "Very few, if any, former SEC attorneys have that kind
of lineage," Bost added.
Stewart followed his SEC career as Assistant General Counsel for
securities industry giant Merrill Lynch, the nation's largest brokerage firm,
where he oversaw compliance and legal matters for the firm's retail operations
in the western United States. Stewart retired from Merrill in 1999, but has
continued to serve that firm on special assignments counseling senior
management in the London-based international law department. Since then,
Stewart has consulted with securities and financial services firms throughout
the country.
"Counseling corporate boards and management, financial services and
securities industry firms, or individuals remains the same," Stewart said.
"But Sarbanes-Oxley has clearly upped the ante. Under new SEC Chairman
Christopher Cox, the Commission will continue to push its focus on corporate
governance, accountability and transparency in financial reporting."
According to Winstead chairman and CEO W. Mike Baggett, "Bringing Taylor
and Stewart together once more in Texas was a golden opportunity for us and
one that will greatly benefit our clients. Tom and Mike have more than 27
years combined SEC experience. They are nationally recognized attorneys with
years of securities-related regulatory and enforcement experience. That's the
type of expertise clients demand and we're happy to provide it."
Winstead's newly launched Securities Litigation and Enforcement Practice
Group will focus on securities industry litigation and arbitration, SEC and
other regulatory investigations and enforcement actions, securities fraud
class actions, and corporate internal investigations.
"Mike and I are very excited about joining Winstead and helping to build
its Securities Litigation and Enforcement Practice. We believe that the
firm's well-established depth in financial services litigation combined with a
new enforcement and regulatory component will make us unique in the Texas
market," said Taylor.
Stewart received his J.D. and his B.S. from Georgetown University,
Washington, D.C. Taylor received his J.D. from the University of Texas and
his A.B. from Cornell University in New York.

Winstead Sechrest & Minick P.C. is among the largest business law firms in
Texas. With more than 300 attorneys, the Firm provides regional, national and
international clients access to a broad range of business legal services
representing more than 30 practice areas. Winstead has offices in Austin,
Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, San Antonio, and The Woodlands, Texas; and
Washington D.C. For detailed information about Winstead, visit
http://www.winstead.com .

Career Summaries on Mike Stewart and Thomas L. Taylor III
Mike Stewart served as the administrator of the Los Angeles, Fort Worth,
and Boston regional offices of the SEC and as the head of the San Francisco
branch office of the Los Angeles region in 1976. He also served as SEC
assistant general counsel 1975-1976 where, among other duties, he held primary
responsibility for the Commission's amicus curiae brief to the U.S. Supreme
Court in the TSC Industries, Inc. v. Northway (1976) decision, in which the
Supreme Court adopted the landmark test, as proposed by the Commission, for
determining when a fact was "material" in a proxy contest. From 1972-1975,
Stewart served as the associate administrator of the Atlanta region of the
SEC, and from 1963-1972, he worked in the Washington, D.C. regional office
where, in 1970, he was promoted to assistant regional administrator and
further served as special assistant to Richard Thornburgh, who was the United
States attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania and later became the
governor of Pennsylvania for two terms (1978-1986) and the U. S. Attorney
General for three years (1988-1991) in the cabinets of Presidents Reagan and
Bush. Stewart also served as an associate solicitor for special litigation to
the U. S. Department of Labor from 1980-1981 in connection with the Labor
Department's litigation against the Teamsters' Union for welfare and pension
fund fraud. He served as deputy director of the Division of Enforcement of
the Commodities Futures Trading Commission from 1976 to 1977 where he
prosecuted actions involving illegal conduct in the soybean futures market.
Finally, Stewart served as an adjunct professor, teaching securities
litigation at SMU's School of Law from 1985-1987, and he is a member of the
State Bar of Texas and the Virginia State Bar.
Thomas L. Taylor III served as Assistant Regional Administrator of the
Fort Worth Region of the SEC and headed the Commission's Houston branch office
from 1980-1982. He also served as Assistant General Counsel of the U.S.
Commodity Futures Trading Commission and as an attorney in the Office of
General Counsel of the SEC in Washington, D.C. Over the past 30 years,
Taylor's practice has focused on a full range of litigation and enforcement
matters for public companies and financial services firms including major
national brokerage firms. Recent representations include class actions and
enforcement matters involving revenue recognition and financial reporting
issues as well as retail securities sales practices. Mr. Taylor is regularly
involved in investigations and enforcement actions brought by the New York
Stock Exchange, National Association of Securities Dealers, the Securities and
Exchange Commission, state Attorneys General and other regulatory bodies. He
has recently represented major financial institutions in connection with
nationwide sweep investigations regarding mutual fund sales practices and
public reporting violations. Most recently, Taylor was a partner in the Los
Angeles Office of global law firm Morgan Lewis and Bockius where, for a number
of years, he headed its Los Angeles litigation section. He is licensed to
practice law in Texas, California, and New York. Representative clients
include Merrill Lynch, Wachovia Securities, and UBS Financial Services, Inc.