WASHINGTON — The office has moved and the work is a little bit different, but the relationships built over 26 years have not changed in his current post as a partner with Venable, LLP, Bill Donovan said.

"I think it's been a great move," the former NAFCU general counsel and chief lobbyist commented upon his one-year anniversary with the law firm with the largest credit union practice in the country. "I really value every one of those 26 years that I spent at NAFCU and was completely invested in what I did while I was there and built friendships within the credit union community that are going to last a lifetime. The transition from general counsel at NAFCU to an attorney in private practice at Venable has gone very smoothly and the real neat thing is my ability to continue working very closely with an awful lot of the leaders of the credit union community with whom I had ongoing dealings with all those years."

The crossover work from legislative to regulatory advocacy remains somewhat the same, Donovan explained. "My practice is a combination of legislative work as well as the more traditional financial service practice of compliance and contract review and enforcement…The interesting thing there is the legislative work has broadened and I enjoy that. In the practice here at Venable, I've had the opportunity to represent clients' interests in the data security legislation that was working its way through Congress last year."