Former SEC Commissioner and long-serving SEC Historical Society Trustee Roberta S. Karmel passed away on Saturday, March 23, 2024. She was 86.
Roberta served as a Society Trustee from 2017-2023 and on the Board of Advisors from 2011- 2016.
“Roberta was a wonderful person and a true inspiration to women in the securities bar. I will miss her, as will all of her many fans,” said Meredith Cross, the Society’s President. “We are grateful for her years service as an SEC Historical Society Trustee and are fortunate to have her history preserved in the museum.”
Roberta was the first woman Commissioner of the Securities and Exchange Commission, where she served from 1977-80.
“I’ve never worked in a place like the SEC, where people are so dedicated and work so hard,” said Roberta in a 2005 SEC Historical Society interview. “I have always respected the dedication and intelligence of so many of the staff members who have been in and out of the Commission over the years and who I consider good friends.”
To learn more about Roberta’s distinguished career and legacy, listen to her oral history and review our extensive collection of Roberta Karmel archives.
This photo is courtesy of Jimmy Carter Presidential Library.
Roberta Karmel’s career
Roberta Karmel served as a Society Trustee from 2017-2023 and on the Board of Advisors from 2011- 2016.
She was the Centennial Professor of Law and Co-Director of the Center for the Study of International Business Law at Brooklyn Law School.
Roberta was the first woman Commissioner of the Securities and Exchange Commission, where she served from 1977 to 1980.
From 1983 to 89, she was a public director of the New York Stock Exchange, Inc., and a member of the National Adjudicatory Council of the NASDR from 1998 to 2001.
Roberta practiced law in New York City for over thirty years at Willkie Farr & Gallagher, Rogers & Wells, and Kelley Drye & Warren.
She received a B.A. cum laude from Radcliffe College in 1959 and an LL.B. cum laude from New York University School of Law in 1962.
Professor Karmel was a Trustee of the Practicing Law Institute. She co-chaired the International Coordinating Committee of the Section of Business Law of the American Bar Association and chaired the AALS Section on Securities Regulation.
She was a member of the Advisory Committee on capital markets law to Unidroit, a member of the American Law Institute, a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation, and on the Boards of Advisors of Securities Regulation and Law Report, The Review of Securities and Commodities Regulation, and the World Securities Law Report.
She was a Fulbright Scholar in 1991-92.
Professor Karmel authored over 50 articles in books and legal journals and wrote a regular column on securities regulation for the New York Law Journal.