Luse Gorman was founded in 1993 as a specialty law firm dedicated to representing financial institutions, with a particular emphasis on community banks. Since then, we have grown into the largest community financial institution law firm in the nation. Much of our practice focuses on transactional matters. We advise financial institutions on mergers and acquisitions and a broad range of capital raising transactions, including common stock and preferred stock offerings, subordinated debt offerings, mutual-to-stock conversions, and mutual holding company reorganizations. We are routinely ranked as one of the top law firms nationally for merger and acquisition transactions by community financial institutions, and have been ranked number one in three of the last five years. Since 2000 we have completed more financial institutions merger and acquisition transactions than any other firm in the nation. We are also routinely ranked as one of the top law firms nationally in total capital raising transactions by financial institutions. Because of the significant number of transactions we complete for our clients each year, we offer an exceptional combination of knowledge and experience that we believe is unmatched by other law firms around the country.
In addition to our transactional practice, we provide a range of other services to community financial institutions, including advising clients on matters such as SEC and public company reporting and disclosure, shareholder relations, executive compensation and employee benefits matters, taxation, corporate governance, regulatory enforcement and compliance, holding company reorganizations, de novo bank formations and charter conversions.
Our expertise and ability to complete transactions expeditiously is enhanced by the number of seasoned partners we have, most of whom have over 20 years of experience in advising community financial institutions, and many of whom have held senior positions at the federal banking agencies or the SEC. Our location in Washington, D.C. also gives us proximity to the federal regulators who supervise our clients and review or approve transactions.
In addition to our representation of federally chartered institutions, a significant portion of our client base is comprised of state chartered institutions. In this regard, we routinely advise our clients on matters before the various state financial institution regulators and we are an active member and participant in almost every state banking association in the United States.
Along with state and nationally chartered community banks and their holding companies, we represent state and federally chartered savings institutions, credit unions and trust companies, as well as investment banks and private equity and venture capital firms that work with and invest in the financial services industry.