Murphy & McGonigle said it added securities lawyer Thomas Ferrigno as a shareholder, after a relatively quick stint at Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough.

Ferrigno, based in Washington, D.C., is a former chief counsel of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's division of enforcement who left the government for Nelson Mullins in October 2017. Nelson Mullins continued to trumpet his arrival earlier this year as part of the “significant growth” in the firm's white-collar defense and government investigations team.

Now, Murphy & McGonigle is touting Ferrigno's addition to its large stable of professionals in the securities enforcement space. Murphy & McGonigle, which bills itself as a financial services and regulatory law firm, said Ferrigno is joining 15 other SEC alums there.

“We are thrilled to welcome Tom to our firm,” said Thomas McGonigle, executive committee member and co-founder of Murphy & McGonigle, in a statement. “His depth of experience in securities enforcement will be extremely valuable to our clients and further enhances our industry leading regulatory enforcement defense and securities litigation practices.”

Nelson Mullins, an Am Law 100 firm based in Columbia, South Carolina, but with its largest office in Atlanta, has close to 35 lawyers in its D.C. office, according to ALM data. The firm didn't immediately respond to a request for comment about Ferrigno's departure.

Ferrigno's several decades of experience before joining Murphy & McGonigle as shareholder included pit stops not only at Nelson Mullins and time at the SEC but also at Brown Rudnick; Norton Rose Fulbright predecessor Fulbright & Jaworski; and Hughes Hubbard & Reed. He has represented public companies, broker-dealers, investment advisers and individuals involved in investigations and litigation brought by government.

Murphy & McGonigle, with offices in New York, D.C. and Richmond, Virginia, is a midsize firm that did not crack this year's NLJ 500 list of the nation's 500 largest firms as measured by head count. The firm was founded in 2010, after the economic recession, and has looked to differentiate itself by touting its rates as “20 to 30% lower than many of our competitors.”