William Uchimoto and Senior Legal Team Join Stevens & Lee, Launch Firm's China Practice Group

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Mar 10, 2010, 04:13 ET

PHILADELPHIA, March 10 /PRNewswire/ -- Stevens & Lee announced that William W. Uchimoto has joined the firm's Corporate Finance and Capital Markets practice as a Shareholder in its Philadelphia office.

Also joining the firm as Of Counsel are James M. Connolly, an experienced securities regulatory and compliance lawyer, and a team of bilingual professionals – Thomas Zhi Yang, Bingjie Shen and Vivian Wei Hou – who are fluent in Chinese and experienced in assisting Chinese companies in entering the U.S. marketplace.

"We are pleased to have such a talented team of lawyers and professionals join our firm," said Ernie Choquette, President of Stevens & Lee. "Bill and Jim are very highly regarded securities lawyers and bring a great deal of additional depth to our corporate practice."

"The addition of the China Practice Group is also an exciting development for our firm," said Mr. Choquette. "Because of our multidisciplinary practice and our vertically integrated affiliates, including a FINRA-licensed investment bank, we believe this experienced team of bilingual professionals will be very well-positioned to assist Chinese companies in raising money and in conducting business in the U.S."

Mr. Uchimoto is a leading legal authority on securities, regulatory and compliance matters and a prominent advisor to Chinese companies seeking to become U.S. public companies. He represents broker-dealers, investment advisors, securities exchanges, hedge funds, public and private companies and other financial market participants in various transactional and regulatory matters.

Mr. Uchimoto has spent more than 25 years in the securities industry, launching his career with the SEC in 1981 as an attorney with its Division of Market Regulation. Today, he leads a team of professionals who assist Chinese companies in becoming U.S. public companies and listing on U.S. securities exchanges.

He is the former Co-Chairman of the Minorities in the Profession Committee of the Philadelphia Bar Association, serves on the Advisory Committee of the Asian Pacific Bar Association of Pennsylvania and is a faculty member of the International Law Institute. He received a J.D. from the University of California Hastings College of Law and a B.A. from the University of California at Davis.

Mr. Connolly assists clients with a full range of regulatory and compliance matters involving the SEC, FINRA, national securities exchanges and state securities regulatory authorities, including SEC registration, FINRA and securities exchange membership, and assists public corporations list on NASDAQ.

He spent more than 20 years in the financial markets in positions in institutional sales, trading and portfolio management, while holding officer-level positions with Morgan Stanley & Co., Nomura Securities International, HSBC Securities and Morgan Guaranty Trust Co. of New York (now J.P. Morgan & Company). He holds a J.D., cum laude, from the State University of New York at Buffalo, an MBA from Seton Hall University and a B.S. from Niagara University.

ABOUT STEVENS & LEE

Among the 200 largest law firms in the nation, Stevens & Lee is part of a multidisciplinary group of professional services companies which includes an investment bank, a D&O and E&O insurance risk consulting business, a swap and derivative advisory business, federal and state lobbying units, a government incentives and sales and use tax consulting business and a health care risk consulting business.

Our 240 multidisciplinary professionals serve clients throughout the Mid-Atlantic region and across the country from 15 offices in: Philadelphia, Valley Forge, Reading, Harrisburg, Lancaster, the Lehigh Valley, Scranton and Wilkes-Barre, PA; Princeton and Cherry Hill, NJ; Wilmington, DE; New York City and Charleston, SC.