Allison Herren Lee

Allison Herren Lee’s practice focuses on representing whistleblowers reporting securities, commodities, banking and capital markets law violations, including a focus on ESG, governance/audit, securities law, and whistleblowers.

Before joining Kohn, Kohn & Colapinto as Of Counsel, Lee was appointed by President Donald Trump to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate, and sworn into office on July 8, 2019. In January 2021, she was appointed by President Biden as Acting Chair of the Commission and served in that role through April of 2021. She then continued to serve as a commissioner until she stepped down in July 2022.

Throughout her tenure as Commissioner and her service as Acting Chair, she emphasized the need for fulsome and accurate disclosures so that investors have the information they need in pricing risk and allocating capital. She highlighted the need for market participants to maintain the highest ethical standards, and quickly moved to make climate change risk and ESG a top SEC priority. As the SEC’s Acting Chair, Lee helped propel ESG issues to the forefront of the agency’s agenda. Among other things, she hired a senior policy adviser for ESG and launched an enforcement task force to evaluate and pursue tips, referrals, and whistleblower complaints on ESG-related issues. She was a champion for stronger whistleblower protections and individual accountability for violations of securities laws.

Prior to her tenure as Commissioner, Lee spent over two decades as a securities law practitioner. She wrote, lectured, and taught courses internationally in Spain and Italy on financial regulation and corporate law. Commissioner Lee served for over a decade in various roles at the SEC, including as counsel to Commissioner Kara Stein and as Senior Counsel in the Division of Enforcement’s Complex Financial Instruments Unit. In addition, she has served as a Special Assistant U.S. Attorney, was a member of the American Bar Association’s former Committee on Public Company Disclosure, and participated in a USAID project in Armenia, assisting in the drafting of periodic reporting and disclosure provisions for a comprehensive law of the Republic of Armenia on Securities Market Regulation.

Before government service, Commissioner Lee was a partner at Sherman & Howard LLC, focusing on securities, antitrust, and commercial litigation. A member of the Colorado bar, she holds a bachelor’s degree in business from the University of Colorado and a JD from the University of Denver College of Law, where she was salutatorian, a Chancellor’s Scholar, and served on the Law Review.

In addition to her role with Kohn, Kohn and Colapinto, Commissioner Lee is an Adjunct Professor and Senior Research Fellow at NYU Law’s Institute for Corporate Governance and Finance.