Russ Ryan joined King & Spalding on Tuesday as partner, returning to the firm after three years in senior roles at the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA).

Ryan spent 11 years at King & Spalding before going to FINRA in 2015. He was most recently senior vice president and deputy chief of enforcement for the organization.

“I considered other options, but I just kept coming back to the notion that if I'm going to come back to private practice … I knew how good it was here and I have a number of fairly dear friends here,” he said of his King & Spalding ties.

Ryan cited Dixie Johnson, Carmen Lawrence and Dick Walker as fellow partners he was looking forward to working with again. Ryan's practice involves Foreign Corrupt Practices Act compliance, corporate internal investigations, and enforcement matters brought by FINRA or the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Since he last worked in private practice in 2015, Ryan said he thinks the SEC has begun focusing more on retail brokers and average investors. There are also a number of FCPA investigations still proceeding, he said, and his skill set will be particularly useful for clients facing such scrutiny.

He pointed out that King & Spalding has invested heavily in its government investigations practice since he left the firm in 2015. Earlier this year, for example, former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates joined the firm as a partner in D.C. and Atlanta. The D.C. office has added others recently too, including Brian Ashin who joined the corporate, finance and investments practice in September from Manatt, Phelps & Phillips.

Ryan, who began work at King & Spalding on Tuesday, noted that amid all the changes in his professional life, he would continue to play baseball with his son in an over-30 league. The duo's dedication to the game—playing on Sunday morning for two seasons each year in a team that participates in optional Spring Training in Florida—was spotlighted by The Wall Street Journal earlier this year.