Lawyers / Professionals

Mr. Cutler chairs the firm's Accountants Defense practice and regularly represents international and national accounting firms, companies, auditors and individuals in civil, criminal and regulatory matters, including in investigations before the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). He joined the firm from the PCAOB, where he was the first employee of the Board's Division of Enforcement and Investigations, and where he helped design and implement many of the division's current enforcement policies and procedures.

Prior to the PCAOB, Mr. Cutler was with the SEC's Division of Enforcement where he opened the Enron investigation and was instrumental in the SEC's settled fraud actions against various financial institutions resulting in more than $320 million of disgorged funds and penalties to be distributed to injured Enron investors. Additionally, he assisted the SEC and the Department of Justice's Enron Task Force in other related Enron cases, including those against Enron's former CEO. In addition, Mr. Cutler tried and settled multiple cases involving financial fraud, insider trading and broker/dealer misconduct.

Prior to his legal career, Mr. Cutler worked for a company that provided financial accounting services to large financial institutions. He is highly knowledgeable in both Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) and PCAOB auditing standards (formerly Generally Accepted Auditing Standards), and has extensive experience with matters involving complex financial accounting issues.

Mr. Cutler speaks frequently at CLE and CPE programs and has provided multiple training sessions to in-house counsel, company executives and law firms. In particular, Mr. Cutler has spoken at the Annual AICPA National Conference on Current SEC and PCAOB Developments and at the Annual ALI-ABA Accountants' Liability Conference. In addition, he has provided CLE training sessions for the legal departments of two of the Big 4 accounting firms on the regulation of the accounting profession, and for law firms on topics including accounting and auditing for derivatives, accounting for transfers of financial assets and accounting for variable interest entities.

Mr. Cutler also writes on legal and accounting matters important to the profession, and has had articles and case notes published by the American Bar Association and other periodicals. He also regularly contributes to McGuireWoods' Subject To Inquiry, where he discusses accounting and auditing related issues and accounting firm regulation.