JPMorgan Chase General Counsel Stacey Friedman doesn't like to sit around without something to do.
"The thing that makes me most nervous is an empty to-do list," she said.
That wasn't much of a problem for Friedman this year. As executive vice president and general counsel at JPMorgan, she was plenty busy.
JPMorgan played a central role in the effort to keep the regional banking industry afloat after depositors rushed to withdraw funds from Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank, causing both banks to collapse.
Regulators worried that the collapses might spur a massive outflow of deposits at other mid-sized banks. And, in March, JPMorgan led a coalition of 11 banks that kicked in $30 billion in deposits to First Republic, another regional bank that was teetering on the edge.
The move was meant to be a show of faith in the stability of the financial system, and to help keep First Republic going under. The deposits included $5 billion each from Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo and JPMorgan, alongside $2.5 billion apiece from Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley and $1 billion infusions from BNY Mellon, PNC Bank, State Street, Truist and U.S. Bank.
"Not everyone thought that was 100% going to insure that First Republic was going to survive, but everybody thought it would help stem the tide of a little bit of the dominos thing that was happening," Friedman said. "And you know it did, it gave some breathing room."
But then, in May, First Republic was seized by regulators and a bidding war for the bank ensued.
"I flew in from Asia on Friday night, I slept that night, we went all Saturday to put our first bid in, we were up all Saturday night for the rebid process because it was so competitive, and all Sunday to negotiate it," she said. "And then we had our analyst call on Monday morning."
Over the course of a weekend, JPMorgan had reached an agreement to buy the beleaguered bank. Friedman was in the middle of it all, taking the lead in a whirlwind of legal proceedings and negotiations.
"It's been a banger of a year," Friedman said. "JPMorgan holds itself out and tries to come to the table on big policy issues and big moments in thinking about the country and the banking system and support for our economy in challenging times."
"But it's not very often that you get to see that in practice," she continued.
It's almost a full-circle moment for Friedman, who said she first worked with JPMorgan as a litigator and partner at law firm Sullivan & Cromwell when the bank sought to acquire Washington Mutual.
"I'd never worked for JPMorgan at that point," she said. "Really, you can draw a straight line from that moment to the opportunities I've had to date."
It was that "bit of fortune" that first brought her to the bank, Friedman said. She'd just finished a big matter at Sullivan & Cromwell, so she walked into the head litigator's office and asked if he had anything else for her.
"He said I'm a nutter, that I should go home, and that I'd been working hard and should go see a movie," she said. "So I was literally packing up my stuff and he came by my office and said 'You know, JPMorgan just called because they're looking at acquiring this bank called Washington Mutual.'"
JPMorgan eventually bought Washington Mutual after it failed in 2008.
Friedman attributes much of her success to her innate curiosity, and an ability to find small details interesting.
"It's not too hard to make my toes tap," she said. " The other day, I was talking about an affirmative action case and I'm like 'oh did you see the footnote on West Point?' and people were like 'You read the footnotes?'"
Outside of the bank, Friedman serves in several leadership roles related to the legal profession. She's on the board of the National Women's Law Center, which fights for gender justice and on women's and girls' issues in courts, public policy and society. The group especially deals with issues for those who face multiple forms of discrimination, including women of color, LGBTQ people, and low-income women and families.
Friedman is also a member of the American Bar Association and the New York Bar Association, and formerly served as a board director for National Center for Law and Economic Justice.
She's a long-time supporter of Services & Advocacy for LGBT Elders (SAGE) and founding member of its National LGBT Elder Housing Initiative Advisory Council, which advises SAGE on law and public policy and helps maximize its housing policy advocacy work.
Friedman also actively supports the American Civil Liberties Union, and has provided pro bono legal expertise for the organization. Of the more high-profile of the ACLU cases, Freidman provided pro bono expertise to a successful challenge to a 2008 Arkansas ballot initiative that made it illegal for cohabiting couples who are not married to adopt children.
And she volunteers with the Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund, which aims to end discrimination based on gender identity and expression via public education, test-case litigation, direct legal services and public policy efforts.
At JPMorgan, Friedman serves as the LGBT+ Executive Forum Sponsor, which is a firmwide consortium of executive directors and managing directors who self-identify as LGBT+ and act as ambassadors and thought leaders for firm wide initiatives. She's also the Operating Committee Sponsor of PRIDE, which is the firm's Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender + and Ally Business Resource Group.
Along with her former life as a law firm partner, Friedman was also a former water polo player. These days, for the general counsel at the center of many of the biggest headline-snatching events in the banking industry this year, swimming is akin to meditation.
"For an hour this morning, I thought about none of these guys," Friedman said. "I thought about my stroke, I thought about my pull, I thought about my kick, I thought about my times, I thought about my breath, I thought about my turns."
