June 2, 2025
New York, NY, June 2, 2025 -- Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP today announced that Chelsea Pizzola has joined the Firm as a partner. She is based in Washington, DC and is a member of Willkie’s Asset Management Department and Digital Works practice.
Chelsea’s practice focuses on derivatives, commodities, securities, and banking regulatory and enforcement matters, as well as cryptocurrency and related digital assets regulation. She has wide-ranging in-house, government and law firm experience, and was most recently Associate General Counsel at principal trading firm DRW, working with its digital asset trading business, Cumberland. Earlier in her career, Chelsea served as Deputy Chief of Staff and Counsel to Chairman Heath Tarbert at the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, where she provided legal and policy advice on Commission rulemakings, enforcement actions, and registration orders and other Commission and staff actions. Previously, Chelsea served as a law clerk to CFTC Chairman J. Christopher Giancarlo, now Willkie senior counsel and Co-Chair of the Digital Works practice.
J. Christopher Giancarlo commented: “Chelsea is an exceptional attorney with a comprehensive set of skills spanning the legal and regulatory aspects of financial services and emerging technologies such as cryptoassets. Her diverse practice and unique perspective gained from in-house and government roles will further deepen our capabilities to clients in the U.S. and globally. We are thrilled to welcome her to Willkie and I am delighted to be reunited with her professionally.”
Chelsea commented: “I’m pleased to be joining a firm that is positioned at the forefront of the evolving digital asset space. I look forward to working alongside Willkie’s talented team of practitioners and leveraging my experience to advise clients on the complex challenges they face across the financial services and emerging technologies landscape.”
The Willkie Digital Works team offers deep experience in the digital assets regulatory, policymaking and enforcement arenas. Representing both startups and established institutions, we guide our clients on the treatment of digital assets under securities and commodities laws and regulations; banking and Treasury laws and regulations; AML/KYC law; and state law matters. Many of our attorneys have held senior positions at the government regulators that interact with the digital asset community.
Willkie’s Asset Management Department leverages subject matter experience and capabilities across all asset classes to advise virtually all types of participants in the industry, including privately owned sponsors and investment managers, publicly-traded asset management firms, broker-dealers, insurance companies, wealth management platforms, and banks, among others. With approximately 120 attorneys across eight offices in the United States and Europe, we advise on the full spectrum of investment management matters, including fund formations, investments, restructurings, fund financings, asset management M&A, secondaries transactions, liquidity and capital solutions, fund “adoptions,” and operational, compliance and regulatory issues.
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Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP provides leading-edge legal solutions on complex, business critical issues spanning markets and industries. Our more than 1,200 attorneys across 15 offices worldwide deliver innovative, pragmatic and sophisticated legal services across approximately 45 practice areas. Learn more at www.willkie.com.
