International law firm Dorsey & Whitney LLP announced today that Christopher T. Shaheen has returned to the Firm and joined its Securities & Financial Services Litigation practice group in Minneapolis as a Partner.

Mr. Shaheen is a business litigator with extensive experience in banking, financial services and securities disputes, as well as consumer regulatory issues, risk avoidance and mitigation and government regulatory and enforcement actions in the banking and financial services industry. He rejoins Dorsey after serving for six years as Deputy General Counsel and Senior Vice President (and previously Chief Litigation Counsel) at U.S. Bank, where he led a team of legal professionals with responsibility for management of all significant U.S. Bank litigation, its employment law function, government and regulatory investigations and subpoena responses. He also provided advice and counsel to U.S. Bank’s Managing Committee and Board of Directors on litigation risk areas, best practices and strategies for addressing legal and risk management and worked regularly with external auditors, corporate leadership and various federal regulators, such as the Office of Comptroller of Currency and the Federal Reserve Board.

Before joining U.S. Bank in 2010, Mr. Shaheen was a Partner in Dorsey’s Trial Group, where he represented clients in complex commercial lawsuits in state and federal court and in arbitration, defended clients who were the subject of civil and criminal regulatory investigations and enforcement proceedings, as well as clients involved in shareholder disputes, civil fraud litigation, securities litigation, tax, trust and estate litigation and trade secret litigation. Before joining Dorsey in 1994, he was a trial attorney for five years with the U.S. Department of Justice through the Attorney General’s Honors Program.

Mr. Shaheen has a J.D. degree from Harvard Law School and a B.A. degree from Bucknell University. After law school, he clerked for the Honorable Samuel Conti, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. Mr. Shaheen is deeply involved in the Twin Cities community, serving on the board of directors of AchieveMpls, the Children’s Law Center of Minnesota and, from 1999-2008, the Project for Pride in Living. He is a past president of the Kenwood-Isles Area Association and a past University of Minnesota Humphrey Institute Policy Fellow.

“We are very pleased that Chris has returned to Dorsey,” noted Ken Cutler, Managing Partner of Dorsey & Whitney. “Chris is a superb trial lawyer, and he returns to Dorsey with deep insights and experience in the banking and financial services industry and the regulatory and government enforcement environments in which that industry operates. He will add even more depth to the Firm’s strong litigation practices and to its industry focus on banking and financial services. We continue to add talent strategically across the Dorsey platform to better serve our clients around the world.”

“I am delighted to be returning to Dorsey and its great Firm-wide team of trial and banking lawyers,” noted Mr. Shaheen. “I look forward to serving Dorsey’s exceptional client base.”