Richard (“Rick”) J. Ressler Rick J. Ressler serves as Managing General Counsel with the firm. With nearly 30 years as an attorney, Mr. Ressler's practice includes corporate and tax law, mergers and acquisitions, securities and financing, contract law, real estate, intellectual property oversight and regulatory law, and labor and employment issues, including stock and other benefit plans. Mr. Ressler has become an indispensable strategist and consultant for clients, helping them use the law as a tool to guide complex decision making.

Prior to joining MosterWynne, Mr. Ressler served as Vice President and Corporate Counsel to Centex Corporation in Dallas, Texas. He also served a concurrent role as General Counsel to Centex Title and Ancillary Services, a Centex subsidiary. Before his roles with Centex, he served as Assistant General Counsel to Union Pacific and Vice President and General Counsel to FENIX, a Union Pacific Corporation subsidiary. He also worked in private practice for prestigious law firms Sullivan & Cromwell and Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom for a total of more than 9 years.

Specifically, while at Centex Mr. Ressler managed the legal components of Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) reporting and was the primary lawyer for Centex on many mergers and acquisitions. He was responsible for developing a corporate-wide compliance plan that governed all corporate entities and business units. That plan dealt with complex issues like Sarbanes-Oxley compliance, director and officer stock restrictions, corporate governance initiatives, political activity compliance, and Audit Committee interface. Rick counseled the outside Board of Centex's public real estate development affiliate, and spearheaded the various legal objectives of the company's title insurance and real estate operations.

While at Union Pacific and FENIX, among other things, he directed the legal function for the "incubation" of Union Pacific's technology-focused transportation assets to develop several stand-alone businesses for eventual IPO or sale. He represented these entities in acquisition transactions, strategic investments, and joint ventures, and prepared the legal documents to facilitate capital-raising. He established systemic procedures for protecting intellectual property, and prepared equity plans, compensation and other new benefits plans, and employment and labor agreements for the hundreds of employees that worked in his divisions.

Critically, Mr. Ressler was a key player in the planning and execution of Union Pacific's strategic initiatives, including acquisitions and sales of business units (including several major public transactions, a hostile tender offer and many smaller transactions), spin-offs, IPO's, regulatory matters, international technology licensing projects, environmental audits, and corporate governance.

Mr. Ressler received his Juris Doctorate cum laude from Harvard Law School and his Bachelor of Arts magna cum laude from Princeton University. He is admitted to practice law in Texas, New York and Pennsylvania (inactive in Pennsylvania).