Paul Clark

Paul Clark is Managing Partner of the Washington, D.C. office of Seward & Kissel LLP and a member of the firm’s Financial Services Regulatory Group. For over 30 years Paul has advised banks, broker-dealers and their trade associations on legislative and regulatory issues enabling or challenging new financial products.

During the course of his career at Seward & Kissel, Paul has advised on the structuring of many new financial products that have required addressing both banking and securities law issues, including the first major broker-dealer bank “sweep program” (Merrill Lynch), the first reciprocal deposit program (CDARS) and numerous novel CD products. Paul has developed the documentation and legal structures that currently support approximately 10% of all domestic deposits in U.S. banks.

Paul has advised “FinTech” companies, including online brokers and wealth managers, on offering deposit and loan products. He has also advised on the offering and safekeeping of various financial products utilizing blockchain technology.

Since 2016 Paul has given the FinTech lecture at the American Bar Association’s Fundamentals of Banking Law seminar. He has also lectured on FinTech at the NYU School of Law.

In April, 2019, Paul helped organize a workshop on privacy and data protection that was co-sponsored by Seward & Kissel and the Ostrom Workshop at Indiana University, with speakers from the FTC, CFPB, Consumer Reports and Capital One Bank.

Paul is the author of “Just Passing Through: A History and Critical Analysis of FDIC Insurance of Deposits Held by Brokers and Other Custodians” (Review of Banking and Financial Law, 2012-2013) and the co-author of “Regulation of Savings Associations After the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery and Enforcement Act of 1989” (The Business Lawyer, 1990).

Since 2010, Paul has been a member of the Advisory Board of the Berkeley Center for Law and Business.

Education

A.B., with High Honors and Distinction, University of California, Berkeley (1976)
J.D., Berkeley Law (1980)

Paul Clark is not teaching any Law courses in Spring 2023.

Courses During Other Semesters