Head of Citigroup’s Law Firm Group Jumps to JPMorgan Chase
Lester Pataki, the lawyer who headed Citigroup Inc.’s law firm group for the last five years, is moving to JPMorgan Chase.
Pataki’s role at his new employer wasn’t immediately known, the Am Law Daily reports. JPMorgan Chase doesn’t have an organized legal lending group.
Citigroup’s law firm group is the largest lender to law firms, with 650 law firm clients, including 60 of the nation’s largest, according to Am Law. But the bank’s larger wealth management group has encountered problems lately, with its net income last year falling by 32 percent.
Citi called the loans of three law firm clients that went on to dissolve in 2008–Heller Ehrman; Thelen; and Thacher, Proffitt & Wood, the story says. Questions have been raised about whether Citibank and Bank of America still have a security stake in Heller because of a mistaken 2007 filing under the Uniform Commercial Code.
