AttorneysEd Center

Katayun Jaffari, chair of Cozen O’Connor’s Corporate Governance & Securities Group, devotes her practice to advising boards of directors and executive management teams on all aspects of corporate matters including governance as well as handling complex securities transactions for businesses in a variety of industries. Kathy has broad experience in capital market transactions, including public offerings, stock-for-stock mergers, and private placements of equity and debt. She has served as outside corporate counsel and has advised on the full panoply of corporate and securities law matters. Kathy also counsels clients in compliance matters, mergers and acquisitions, and ongoing business counseling.

Kathy guides boards of directors and management teams through the laws, rules, regulations, and practical realities that arise when leading an organization. She counsels clients on complying with federal governance laws as well and assisting clients with responding to stakeholder interests such as boardroom diversity and sustainability. She advises and counsels on a myriad of governance issues and helps clients develop compliance programs with respect to legislative, regulatory, and listing rule requirements. Kathy routinely works with chief executive and financial officers and corporate secretaries as well as in-house counsel with board and committee meetings and matters. Her corporate clients range within a variety of industries and she also assists non-profit corporations with respect to all aspects of corporate governance matters. In addition, Kathy provides training programs for boards, management, and employees with respect to many diverse compliance and governance matters.

Kathy writes and lectures extensively in the areas of corporate governance, including stakeholder issues such as sustainability and diversity, fiduciary duty matters, securities law compliance, and entity formations and transformations. A believer in the power of mindfulness as a tool to optimize one’s professional and personal capacity for excellence, Kathy has a particular interest in mindfulness in the practice of law as a way to support the needs of her clients. She has lectured extensively in this area, including presenting to corporate clients.

Lindsey Stillwell focuses her practice on corporate law and securities. Her corporate practice spans mergers and acquisitions, entity formation, financing dispositions, joint ventures, and general corporate matters. Lindsey also advises clients on their securities regulation obligations, including Regulation D and state securities law registrations.

Prior to being a summer associate and ultimately joining Cozen O'Connor, Lindsey clerked at two Massachusetts law firms. Before that, she was involved in America Next, Inc., Believe Again PAC, the Republican Party of Florida, Gabriel Gomez for U.S. Senate, and Amnesty International - Argentina.

Lindsey earned her undergraduate degree from Bucknell University and her law degree from the University of Richmond School of Law. While in law school, she was senior staff for the Richmond Journal of Law & Technology.

Christine A. Zoino is currently Vice President, Deputy General Counsel & Corporate Secretary at NRG Energy, Inc., a fortune 200 NYSE corporation. She has been with the company since February 2013. She is responsible for all matters relating to NRG Energy, Inc.’s board of directors, corporate governance and public company reporting requirements. In addition, Ms. Zoino focuses on corporate level mergers & acquisitions, and public and private debt and equity offerings. Prior to NRG, she worked in the Princeton office of Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP representing emerging technology and life sciences companies on a broad range of matters, including securities laws, corporate finance, venture capital and mergers & acquisitions. Prior to this, she was an associate in the structured finance group at Thacher Proffitt & Wood LLP in New York City where she represented issuers, underwriters, originators and insurers in asset-backed and residential mortgage-backed securitizations. In addition, she served as a legal intern at the New York Stock Exchange in Market Surveillance and was in the summer’s honors program of the Securities and Exchange Commission in its Northeast Regional Office in New York City. Ms. Zoino earned her JD from New York Law School, cum laude, where she served as Executive Articles Editor of the New York Law School Law Review, and her bachelor’s degree from University of Maryland, College Park.