Steve Bernard is a partner at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, where he specializes in representing U.S. and non-U.S. companies in domestic and crossborder public offerings, mergers and acquisitions, and SEC compliance. Steve has extensive experience in cross-border corporate transactions, including the initial public offering of Trintech Group Plc, which was the first simultaneous duallisting of American Depositary Shares on Nasdaq and the Neuer Markt, the acquisition of Applied Learning Limited, an Australian Stock Exchange-listed company, through a scheme of arrangement, the $1.6 billion sponsored global secondary offering of American Depositary Shares by Infosys Technologies Limited, the public-to-private transaction for Transware Limited, and the structuring and implementation of Logitech International's Global Share Program. His practice includes all aspects of public and private company representation, including private financings and corporate governance. He also has represented underwriters in numerous public offerings and investors in venture capital financings.
Prior to joining Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, Steve practiced law with Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson in New York.
Gary M. Brown is a partner with Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough LLP, where he concentrates his practice in securities, representation of public companies and corporate governance. Prior to joining Nelson Mullins in 2018, he had served for seven years as the Chief Executive Officer of a financial services firm that specialized in the life settlement market and which, during his tenure, acquired and managed life settlement portfolios with over $4 billion (USD) in face amount.
In his thirty-two years of private law practice, Gary has been recognized in both Best Lawyers in America and Chambers – America’s Leading Business Lawyers. In addition, from 1994 until 2011, he taught corporate and securities law at the Vanderbilt University Law School. He also served as general counsel to the Ethics and Compliance Officer Association (now known as the Ethics and Compliance Initiative), then the world’s largest group of ethics and compliance professionals.
Gary is a frequent instructor at securities programs for the Practising Law Institute, co-chairing one of PLI’s national securities programs, Understanding the Securities Laws and instructing at the SEC Reporting and Practice Skills Workshop for Lawyers.
During 2002, Gary served as Special Counsel (Minority) to the United States Senate's Governmental Affairs Committee (and also worked with the Committee's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (“PSI”)) in its investigation into the causes of the collapse of Enron Corp. During 2010, he was retained by PSI to assist in its investigation, “Wall Street and the Financial Crisis,” and related televised hearings. While on those assignments, he provided advice on aspects of both the Sarbanes Oxley Act of 2002 and the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010 as those pieces of legislation were being debated in the Senate.
Gary has authored numerous publications on securities and compliance issues, including PLI’s Securities Law and Practice Deskbook, which is updated semi-annually, PLI’s Master the 8-K, and the chapter “Introduction to Life Settlements” in PLI’s treatise Financial Product Fundamentals. His other publications include: PLI’s Guide to the SEC’s New Executive Compensation Disclosure Rules (Practising Law Institute 2007); The Implications of the U.S. Sarbanes-Oxley Act, (Japanese-German Center-Berlin/ Max Planck Institute For Foreign Private and Private International Law – September 2004, The Oxford Press).
