Partner · New York · With the firm since 2016
Laura Whitcombe
Advises boards and general counsel in financial services and technology on investigations, leadership changes and disputes with investors.
Laura Whitcombe advises boards, chairs and general counsel in financial services and technology, most often on internal and regulatory investigations, contested leadership changes and disputes with investors. She is the partner clients in New York tend to call when the problem is inside the boardroom rather than outside it.
She spent eleven years in communications at a global investment bank, the last four as head of corporate communications for the Americas, and two years advising a private equity firm on its portfolio companies. She joined Halden Rook in 2016 as a director and became a partner in 2018.
She leads the firm’s work for financial services clients in North America and sits on its risk committee, which approves every new client and every new matter for an existing one.
She lives in Montclair, New Jersey, and is a trustee of a small foundation that funds legal aid.
Selected experience
- Advising the special committee of a listed fintech company through an internal investigation and the departure of its founder, 2021.
- Advising a private bank with offices in London and New York after a supplier’s error exposed client statements, 2023.
- Advising the board of an asset manager on a dispute with an activist shareholder, 2024 to 2025.
Clients are not named. Matters are listed with the client’s agreement.
Speaking
Recent
- The special committee’s first statement. A seminar for directors of listed companies, New York.
- Investigations and the record. A panel for in-house investigators, Boston.