WASHINGTON - Kathleen Hamm, an assistant director of enforcement at the Securities and Exchange Commission who played a key role in the SEC's yield-burning and other municipal securities cases, plans to leave the commission within the next two weeks to join a Palo Alto, Calif.-based law firm.
Hamm, 37, who has been at the SEC for nine years, will join Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati as of counsel in July, the commission announced yesterday.
The firm specializes in representing high-tech corporate clients, according to Hamm, who expects to focus on enforcement defense, litigation, and securities counseling in the firm's Palo Alto office.
"Kathleen is a very talented lawyer who has served the commission with distinction for nearly a decade," said Richard H. Walker, the SEC's enforcement director, in a statement. "She leaves behind a solid record of important enforcement actions."
Hamm supervised most of the SEC's yield-burning investigations, including the massive $138.3 million settlement that the SEC and other federal agencies reached in April with 17 Wall Street and regional firms -- the sixth-largest-ever securities settlement. Altogether, the SEC recovered about $171 million from 21 firms in yield-burning related cases.
She also played a major role in several municipal securities cases, including those against Little Rock-based Stephens Inc. and its former head of public finance, William C. Bethea; Philadelphia-based Pryor, McClendon, Counts & Co. and the firm's former vice chairman, Raymond J. McClendon, and the firm's current president, Allen Counts; and Theresa A. Stanford, Atlanta's former investment officer.
Hamm also conducted and supervised cases involving corporate financial and accounting fraud, insider trading, and broker-dealer and investment adviser misconduct. In addition, she investigated and litigated the SEC's first fraud cases involving markups below 5% on debt securities. The case involved Ginnie Mae government-sponsored securities.
Hamm became an assistant director of enforcement at the SEC in 1997. She was branch chief for two years prior to that, and staff attorney or senior counsel for her first four years at the commission.
Before joining the SEC, she was an associate with the Arizona-based law firm of Streich Lang. Hamm graduated from the Georgetown University Law Center with a master's degree in securities regulation and obtained her law degree from Duke University. She received an undergraduate degree in business administration and accounting from the State University of New York at Buffalo.
A replacement for Hamm has not yet been named.
