Practice Profile: Jonathan Gould ’01L Is a Partner in the Financial Markets Group at Jones Day With extensive experience in government and business, Jonathan Gould provides financial regulatory and strategic advice to financial services providers of all types.

By Law Communications
December 9, 2024

For more than 20 years, W&L Law graduate Jonathan Gould ’01L has worked in financial regulation, including two stints in government during some of the most volatile periods for the banking industry. As a partner in the Financial Markets group at Jones Day, Gould now lends that experience to financial providers and serves as a trusted expert advising congressional oversight committees.

He began his career as an associate in the Financial Services group at Alston & Bird in Washington, D.C., where he did everything from general corporate work, such as SEC filings, to transactional work with banks that had heavy regulatory components. He was involved in new bank charters as well, including the creation of one of the few D.C.-chartered banks. These experiences in his early career sparked an interest in policymaking. “I remember driving down Pennsylvania Avenue late one night after work, flanked by these beautiful federal-style buildings, wondering what the people who worked there did all day.” It was then he started laying the groundwork for the next phase of his career. In 2005, he went to work on the staff of the Senate Banking Committee, an opportunity, he says, “to get involved in the business of DC rather than just being a bystander.”

During his time there, he worked on both the majority and minority sides of the Senate as one party and then the other took control of the Senate. Ideological differences played a smaller role at that time on financial services issues. He contributed to several bills that became law, including legislation that reshaped the Deposit Insurance Fund for the FDIC. His exposure to regulatory matters deepened, and he became involved in the oversight of banking agencies, concluding his work on the Senate Banking Committee just as the first waves of the 2008 financial crisis appeared.

Gould returned to the private sector as a consultant and Deputy General Counsel at Promontory Financial Group, a then leading regulatory consulting firm, where he helped banking clients navigate often opaque supervisory expectations. He joined the firm in March 2008, and by the summer, problems began manifesting in the banking system, including the failure of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, as well as major financial services firms like Lehman Brothers. “So there was an immediate need for someone of my background to help these various financial institutions navigate both the market crisis, but also the regulatory and subsequent legislative response that followed.”

The financial crisis created a significant paradigm shift in banking regulation, which was eventually codified in the Dodd-Frank Act of 2010. What followed was a period of great expansion for Promontory, which grew in headcount and geography, including into non-U.S. jurisdictions. Gould supported that growth as its corporate counsel before deciding to focus full-time on his consulting role. It became clear to him in the aftermath of the financial crisis that his consulting expertise would be more effective with a stronger background in quantitative analysis. A move to BlackRock Solutions in 2014 provided just that chance to “get into the financial modeling space, specifically risk analytics, and become more fluent in making those arguments.” At BlackRock, Gould expanded his knowledge base beyond the banking world by working with traders, asset class specialists, financial modelers, and more to harness existing BlackRock infrastructure and turn it into new sources of revenue for the firm—while at the same time, helping BlackRock clients address regulatory issues created as a result of the 2008 crisis.

But Gould felt the pull of government service again in 2018 when he returned to serve as Chief Counsel to the Senate Banking Committee, where he worked on the first major banking legislation since the 2008 crisis, the Economic Growth Act. From there, he was recruited to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the oldest regulatory agency in the U.S., which exists to charter, regulate, and supervise the national banking system, composed of over a thousand national banks and federal savings associations that hold almost $16 trillion in assets. As Senior Deputy Comptroller and Chief Counsel, his first task was to lead a major reorganization of the 200-person Law Department, which had not been updated in roughly 30 years. “Given the amount of change and technological advances in the banking sector over the last 20-plus years, it was very important to me that we get fresh thinking on legal issues so we could provide creative legal advice to the agency as a whole.”

From there, Gould began working on the implementation of the Economic Growth Act on an interagency basis with the Federal Reserve, the FDIC, and other agencies. He positioned the OCC to support innovation by chartering banks with novel business models, including fintechs, and issuing legal opinions on which crypto-related activities were permissible if conducted in a safe and sound manner.

One of his most significant achievements at the OCC was leading the effort to reform the Volcker Rule, a critical component of the Dodd-Frank Act. The rule was originally intended to prevent banks from engaging in speculative trading that could put their deposits at risk. However, over the years, the rule became a “massive compliance exercise with minimal benefit to the banking system’s overall safety and soundness. We were able to keep the safety and soundness benefits of the rule while eliminating the costly and unnecessary compliance burden.”

Gould’s time at the OCC also placed him in the heart of crisis management during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. The financial system faced unprecedented stress, with market participants scrambling to move into cash as uncertainty gripped global markets. Gould likened the early weeks of the crisis to a “2008 crisis wrapped into a super compressed time frame,” highlighting the severity of the situation. Despite the challenges, Gould’s leadership and deep knowledge of financial infrastructure helped steer the OCC through those turbulent times, ensuring that regulatory agencies remained agile and responsive.

Gould returned to the law firm world in 2022 and now advises clients on a wide range of banking and financial services issues. While the managerial responsibilities of his previous roles might be behind him, he finds fulfillment in helping clients navigate the complex regulatory landscape. “What’s been nice is being able to have a variety of different clients on a variety of different issues and continue to focus on the things that I cared about in government,” he said. His ability to balance regulatory integrity with a forward-looking approach has made him a sought-after expert in his field, having testified before the U.S. House of Representatives on four occasions regarding banking policy.

Reflecting on his career both in government and the private sector, Gould shared one aspect of lawyering that he feels is paramount. “I’ve seen too many circumstances where lawyers or other advisors substitute their own personal preferences for that of the decision maker.  In doing so, they risk neglecting the important role that non-legal factors play in the decision-making process. It’s critical to provide a full range of options.”

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