Harvey L. Pitt

On August 3, 2001, President Bush appointed Harvey L. Pitt as the 26th Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission. Chairman Pitt had previously served as an attorney on the staff of the Commission from 1968 until 1978, the last three years of which he was the Commission's General Counsel.

For nearly a quarter of a century before rejoining the Commission, Chairman Pitt was in the private practice of law. Chairman Pitt also was a founding trustee and the president of the SEC Historical Society, and participated in a wide variety of bar and continuing legal education activities to further public consideration of significant securities law issues. Chairman Pitt served as an Adjunct Professor of Law at Georgetown University Law Center (1975-84), George Washington University Law School (1974-82) and the University of Pennsylvania School of Law (1983-84).

In his prior service with the Commission, before his appointment as the Commission's General Counsel (1975-78), Chairman Pitt started as a staff attorney in the Commission's Office of General Counsel (1968), and served in the following capacities over the next decade: Legal Assistant to SEC Commissioner Francis M. Wheat (1969); Special Counsel in the Office of the General Counsel of the SEC (1970-72); Editor of the SEC's Institutional Investor Study Report (1972); Chief Counsel of the SEC's Division of Market Regulation (1972-73); and Executive Assistant to SEC Chairman Ray Garrett, Jr. (1973-75).

Chairman Pitt received a J.D. degree from St. John's University School of Law (1968), and his B.A. from the City University of New York (Brooklyn College) (1965). He was awarded an honorary doctorate in law by St. John's University School of Law in June 2002.