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Earlier this week, I participated in a panel discussion for the first day of Professor David Hamm’s Securities Regulation class at Colorado Law. We had a lively discussion of our careers as securities practitioners. One of the questions that we were asked was how we came to be securities lawyers, and when I tell that story, it strikes me how so many random events can lead one to their chosen career.

I completed my undergraduate education in 1989 with a degree in Business Economics, and at the time we were in the grips of a recession and entry level jobs for college graduates were not plentiful. So I decided to stay in school and pursue a master’s degree in finance, with the possibility of then going on to get an advanced degree in economics. But when I took the “subject” portion of the GRE exam, I decided then and there that economics was really not for me.

While casting about for jobs during my master’s degree studies, I came across a job posting from the SEC which indicated that the SEC hired people with finance degrees to serve as financial analysts in the SEC’s Division of Corporation Finance (sadly this is no longer done). I dug a little bit deeper into what Corp Fin did, and I thought that sounded like an interesting possibility, but I realized that doing the job as a lawyer would be much more interesting than doing it as a financial analyst. I had also seen the movie “Wall Street,” and I thought the SEC lawyers looked pretty cool in their windbreakers with “SEC” on the back. So I decided to apply to law school with the express purpose of getting a job in the Division of Corporation Finance at the SEC, with no Plan B.

I did manage to get a job in finance after getting out of school, so I ended up going to law school at night while working as a financial analyst by day. Thankfully, I met Lori Price through our law school connection and I got my foot in the door at the SEC, and a securities lawyer’s career was born!

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– Dave Lynn