Elizabeth Lan Davis

Practice Areas

Liz co-chairs the firm's national financial services practice. With nearly two decades of federal government experience at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and U.S. Department of Justice, Liz has the insights to effectively advocate before the CFTC, DOJ, Internal Revenue Service, Securities and Exchange Commission, National Futures Association, and exchanges such as CME and ICE.

Liz represents individual and corporate clients in financial services examinations, regulatory investigations and proceedings, and white-collar matters. Her wide-ranging clients include financial institutions, proprietary trading firms, agricultural and energy firms, futures commission merchants, fintech firms, digital asset exchanges, commodity pools, and commodity trading advisors. Liz's depth of government experience allows her to handle government investigations efficiently and resolve civil and criminal matters in a way that significantly reduces penalties sought by the government, while zealously advocating on behalf of her clients in litigation. She also works with companies to conduct cost-effective internal investigations.

At the CFTC, where she served as a chief trial attorney in the Division of Enforcement, Liz led civil regulatory enforcement investigations on wide-ranging matters including fraud and manipulation, virtual currencies, ICOs, credit default swap indices, undercapitalization, and swaps reporting. Before her nine-year tenure at the CFTC, she served as counsel to the deputy assistant attorney general for civil matters within the DOJ Tax Division and was a trial attorney in the Tax Division's civil trial section. As a trial attorney, Liz tried numerous bench and jury trials to judgment, representing the IRS in federal district and bankruptcy courts.

Liz is the former chair of McGonigle, P.C., where she was a founding member of the firm's Commodities, Futures & Derivatives practice group.

Professional Memberships

Asian Pacific American Bar Association of the Greater Washington D.C. Area

Past Fellow, Leadership Council on Legal Diversity

Women in Derivatives

Women in Listed Derivatives

Past Diversity Committee Co-Chair, Women's Bar Association of Washington, D.C.

Women's White Collar Defense Association