TESTIMONY

CarrAmerica General Coun-sel Linda Madrid (ACCA)

Palmer & Dodge Senior Partner Stanley Keller

University of Illinois Law Professor Richard Painter

More: Piper Rudnick's Peter Moser; Other Testimony

Aast week, the U.S. House Subcommittee on Capital Markets, Insurance and Government Sponsored Enterprises—which oversees the securities industry and the SEC—held a hearing on the SEC's "noisy withdrawal" provision.

The provision would require an attorney to withdraw from representing a company—and to notify the SEC that it had done so—if the attorney was dissatisfied with the company's response to evidence of fraud or material violations of securities laws.

Painter

Most of the testimony opposed the noisy withdrawal provision, arguing that clients would be deterred from confiding information to their lawyers, thereby making it difficult for lawyers to give informed advice.

In one twist, University of Illinois College of Law professor Richard Painter argued that withdrawal should be required, but that it doesn't necessarily have to be noisy.

His written testimony stated that the SEC "should require prompt withdrawal from securities law representation of a client that refuses to obey the securities

laws, but should probably leave the amount of noise accompanying the withdrawal up to the lawyer."

Related testimony is available from the box above, right.

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