Karen L. Witt

Karen Witt is a partner in the firm's Business Transactions Practice Group and is co-chair of the firm’s Banking and Financial Services Industry Group. Her practice emphasizes securities, mergers and acquisitions, regulatory compliance, corporate governance, corporate finance transactions, and legal opinions.

In her financial institutions practice, Karen assists large and small financial institutions and their holding companies throughout the Midwestern and Western United States with mergers and acquisitions, branch purchases and assumptions, de novo charters, holding company formations, geographic expansion, capital raising, regulatory compliance issues, strategic planning, stock redemptions, FDIC-assisted bank purchases, business structuring issues, and corporate governance matters.

Karen’s securities practice has included representing issuers and investors in underwritten public offerings and private placements of stock and debt instruments. She regularly advises boards of directors and board committees on regulatory compliance issues, fiduciary duties, recapitalizations, corporate governance matters, tender offers, and going private transactions. Her securities practice experience includes working with publicly held companies to comply with stock exchange rules and securities laws.

Karen has substantial experience in the formation, merger and acquisition, and financing of businesses in a variety of industries, including banking, pharmaceutical, telecommunications, waste management, health care, real estate development, software, baby products, film production, paper products, environmental, alternative energy, information systems, and transportation. She represents clients in stock and asset acquisitions, joint ventures, tender offers, and statutory mergers.

Clients value Karen’s long-term approach to relationships, describing her as a focused, committed team player who sees each transaction within a larger strategic context. Karen’s clients are confident they have the sophisticated counsel required to balance and resolve issues to achieve their goals in a timely, commercial, and efficient manner. Karen provides savvy, actionable counsel geared to the demands of complex, fast-paced corporate transactions.

Karen's hobbies include hiking, gardening, and traveling with her family when she is away from the office.