A Different Perspective

We believe business leaders today expect their advisors to offer broad perspectives and to deliver effective solutions. We understand for us to be valuable to a client we must help that client create value. Due to our decades of experience in helping banks and related businesses work through difficult regulatory, legal, and business problems, we believe that we are able to deliver strategic advice and organizational learning and education opportunities that effectively contribute to our clients' achievment of their business goals.

Who We Are

I. Thomas Bieging is a partner in a law firm based in Denver, Colorado, who focuses his practice in the areas of banking and commercial litigation. His financial institutions practice includes holding company and change of control applications, loan documentation, regulatory compliance advice, loan work outs, and the sale, acquisition and merger of banks and bank holding companies. He has litigated with government agencies on financial institution policy matters with national implications. His extensive financial institution regulatory practice includes the negotiation of regulatory agreements, business and capital plans, acquisitions and chartering. He also has been involved in administrative trials relating to cease and desist orders and civil money penalty proceedings. He serves as counsel to the Independent Bankers of Colorado.

Tom has extensive trial experience in other types of commercial litigation. He has tried cases to juries and courts on such diverse topics as RICO, securities fraud, director and officer liability, professional liability, lender liability, construction contracts, corporate governance and trademark infringement. He also has served as an arbitrator for the American Arbitration Association and as counsel to professional review committees in the health services industry. He has provided legal services to numerous commercial clients throughout the United States.

In addition to his client work, Tom has lectured extensively on many banking law topics. He is an instructor for the Western States School of Banking. He also serves as counsel to the Colorado Privacy Task Force, an organization chartered by the Colorado legislature to develop legislative strategies in high technology areas. Additionally, he serves on the Board of Directors for the Colorado Lawyers Committee.

Tom has been named to the Best Lawyers in America® in the areas of banking and commercial litigation. He received his J.D. from the Georgetown University Law Center in 1970 and received his Bachelor of Science degree from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 1967.

Kevin J. Funnell currently practices law in the Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas, "Metroplex." He has over 35 years of experience in representing business entities on transactional, business and regulatory matters, with an emphasis on financial institutions. He has advised clients on a wide variety of regulatory, corporate and transactional matters, including information acquisition, management, security and transfer and compliance and contract issues concerning electronic commerce, personal information privacy, software, information technology, telecommunications, outsourcing and the Internet. Kevin’s past experience includes in-house counsel for a large financial institution, as well as co-chair of an international law firm’s Banking and Finance Practice Group.

Kevin has handled a number of complex commercial real estate sales, purchases, loans and loan workouts for banks, thrifts and private investors, including representation of the purchaser in the largest commercial real estate transaction in Dallas in 1986 and representation of a large international bank in one of the largest workouts of commercial real estate in Colorado history in 1990. He represented acquirers and potential acquirers in "Southwest Plan" and similar transactions during the late 1980s and early 1990s. He also represented a trade association of real estate developers in lobbying efforts in connection with the Competitive Equality Banking Act of 1987. During the early 1990s, he consulted with the RTC’s Southwest Regional Office in connection with professional liability issues arising out of the savings and loan crisis.

Kevin has been a frequent lecturer and author on subjects concerning financial institutions, information technology and privacy, including an article in the December 2005 issue of the Journal of Internet Law entitled "Holding a Bank’s Technology Service Providers Accountable", a presentation to the 27th Annual Legal Conference of the Texas Savings and Community Bankers Association and Independent Bankers Association of Texas entitled "The Panic Over Privacy - Public Policy, Constitutional Issues and the Effect of the Global Economy," and recent presentations to the annual Net.Finance 2009 conference in Las Vegas, Nevada and the 2009 annual convention of the National Association of Industrial Bankers on the legal risks to banks and other financial institutions of using social media. Since 2004, he has been the author of the blog "Bank Lawyer’s Blog", that provides commentary on law and other matters related to financial institutions.

Kevin received a Bachelor of Arts degree (With Distinction) from the University of Kansas in 1971 and a Juris Doctor from the University of Denver College of Law in 1974. He is a member of the Texas and Colorado bar associations.