Sustaining Reform Efforts at the SEC: A Progress Report

Many recent articles written by U.S. legal practitioners and law scholars in the wake of the financial crisis address regulatory reforms included in or omitted from the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (Dodd-Frank Act) and related agency initiatives. In contrast, this article focuses on institutional reforms - specifically those instituted at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) since President Barack Obama took office in January 2009. In an article published in the Villanova Law Review last year, I assessed the early reform efforts at the SEC in the Obama era from the vantage point of change leadership literature (a branch of business management scholarship). This article updates the preliminary findings reported in the Villanova Law Review article in light of the enactment and initial phases of implementation of the Dodd-Frank Act (which was in the final stages of congressional action when work on the Villanova Law Review article was completed in the spring of 2010) and the subsequent change in the composition of Congress as a result of the mid-term elections in November 2010. The article begins by identifying and assessing ongoing evidence of effective change leadership at the SEC in accordance with the framework used in my earlier article and continues by briefly addressing the potential effects of shortfalls in SEC funding. The article then concludes by making tentative predictions about the future of institutional reform at the SEC in this new political environment.