In this photo from Oct. 8, 2002, Mary Jo White, former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, appears on Capitol Hill in Washington.
At the same time, much of the pressing work facing the agency involves writing new rules. The SEC is seeking stricter rules for money-market mutual funds and must get into shape the so-called Volcker Rule, which would bar banks from making certain trades for their own profit.
As head of the litigators at Debevoise & Plimpton, White has represented a number of financial institutions likely to have crossed swords with the SEC in enforcement cases. Her clients also included former Bank of America CEO Ken Lewis, whom she represented in a 2010 civil lawsuit by then-New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo accusing Lewis of misleading shareholders in the bank's merger with Merrill Lynch.
White also represented the largest U.S. hospital chain, HCA, in the insider-trading investigations by the SEC and the Justice Department of former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, whose family owned HCA. The investigations were closed in 2007 with no charges filed against Frist.
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Associated Press writer Marcy Gordon contributed to this story.
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