John Court general counsel with The Bank Policy Institute.

With its current chief lawyer going back into private practice, the Bank Policy Institute, a nonpartisan public policy and advocacy group in Washington, D.C., that represents the nation's biggest banks, looked in-house to find its next general counsel.

John Court, who has served as BPI's senior vice president and deputy GC since July, is being promoted to GC, a spokesman for the group confirmed Wednesday. Court is expected to take over as BPI's top lawyer later this summer.

Court's soon-to-be predecessor, Jeremy Newell, who also is BPI's executive vice president and chief operating officer, is leaving the group to join Covington & Burling. He had prior stints in private practice at Sullivan & Cromwell and WilmerHale and also served as counsel for American Express Co.

Court did not issue a comment on his promotion. But BPI president and CEO Greg Baer touted Court has having “been a bedrock part of BPI and its predecessor organization, The Clearing House, for over seven years.”

Baer added in his written statement that Court “is an exceptional lawyer in his own right, a thought leader in cross-border and resolution policies, and a known and trusted advocate to our members.”

Court has overseen BPI's regulatory and policy advocacy efforts related to the implementation of the Dodd-Frank Act and ending the “too big to fail” policy, along with other reforms that have affected the banking industry, according to his bio on the BPI website. He joined The Clearing House in 2012 as managing director and deputy general counsel.

Court also serves as principal staff adviser to BPI's bank regulatory committee, a group of senior regulatory lawyers from BPI member banks, which include JP Morgan Chase & Co., Bank of America Corp., Citigroup Inc., and Wells Fargo & Co.

Before he went in-house, Court spent a decade in private practice, most recently as an associate at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, where he was a member of the firm's financial institutions regulatory and enforcement group. Prior to Skadden, he worked as an associate at Winston & Strawn.

He is a graduate of Cornell University and The George Washington University Law School.