H. Rodgin Cohen is bringing in reinforcements.

The chairman of Sullivan & Cromwell LLP -- who has worked on almost every big financial institution bailout of the past few weeks -- has reached out to J. Virgil Mattingly Jr., a former general counsel at the Federal Reserve Board, to join Sullivan & Cromwell's Washington office as senior counsel.

"I know Rodge from my days at the Fed, and he asked me if I would consider helping the firm out in the current situation," says Mattingly, 63. "I thought about it overnight and called him the next afternoon and told him if I could be of help to him then, yes, I would be happy to join."

Mattingly, who ended a 30-year career at the Federal Reserve and Federal Open Market Committee when he retired in 2004, will work closely with S&C special counsel Andrew Baer -- a fellow Fed alum -- and counsel William Kroener III -- a former general counsel of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. -- in Sullivan's Washington office. Cohen says he tapped Mattingly for his insider's knowledge of the Bank Holding Company Act -- an expertise that will come in handy now that Goldman, Sachs & Co. and Morgan Stanley have chosen to become bank holding companies.

"We reached out to the single individual who could offer the most expertise on this," says Cohen. "There is no one more knowledgeable about the Bank Holding Company Act than Virgil."

Mattingly was the Fed's deputy general counsel before serving as general counsel from 1989 until 2004. He began his career as a litigator with the U.S. Army's Judge Advocate General's Corps before joining the Federal Reserve's legal division in 1974. Michael Bradfield, the Federal Reserve's then general counsel, later moved him to manage the banking structure section. There, Mattingly worked on many legislative and administrative initiatives to expand banks' powers under the Bank Holding Company Act, including banks' ability to expand geographically and enter new businesses including discount and full-service brokerage, securities underwriting and investment banking.

After retiring, Mattingly spent about one day a week as a banking consultant at Endurance Capital, a New York investment firm, gardened and worked out. "I wanted to get in shape," he says. "I lost a lot of weight and I feel better." He and Cohen kept in touch, so he wasn't surprised when a job offer materialized. "It was a compliment," he says.

Mattingly marvels at the agency where he made a career. "From the point of view of the staff, they are doing a fabulous job. The steps that they have taken in the last five months are extraordinary compared to what went before. The authorities they used to provide assistance to AIG and to deal with the Bear Stearns situation had never been used before," he says. "I do tip my hat off to them."