Karen C Pelzer

Counsel, Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP

Karen C Pelzer is a counsel in Davis Polk’s financial institutions group in New York, where she provides US bank regulatory advice. Her practice focuses on the impact and implementation of financial regulation, including financial services reform, and the preparation of living wills.

She also advises on M&A and capital markets transactions involving financial institutions. Her clients include many of the largest US and foreign banks as well as other financial institutions. Prior to joining Davis Polk’s financial institutions group, she was a member of Davis Polk’s mergers and acquisitions group and provided corporate advice on public and private M&A transactions. Before joining Davis Polk, Ms Pelzer practised law at Hengeler Mueller in Germany and provided corporate, M&A and capital markets advice to a broad range of clients.

Ms Pelzer studied law at Cologne University, Germany, and graduated, with honours, in 1999. She received her PhD in law, magna cum laude, from the University of Bonn, Germany, in 2003, and clerked at the Higher Regional Court in Cologne, Germany. In 2011, she received her LLM from Columbia University and graduated as a Harlan Fiske Stone scholar.