A lawyer might spend 50 hours on a brief, but a judge has to be able to read it in two. If you can't get the message across in that time, your client might lose because of your efforts. The same dynamic is at play at the SEC. Again, if you can't convince the Committee in 20 pages that they ought to commit the federal government's resources to what you recommend, you are in trouble. It can mean the difference between a securities fraudster getting what's coming to him and not. I have thought for 20 years that my education as an English major put me in an excellent position to do just that.

In the SEC's Enforcement Division, the threshold for launching a formal investigation is very low. One only has to have "official curiosity" about whether a federal securities law violation took place. That standard vests a lot of power in unelected officials who have to have good judgment in wielding it. Without that judgment, lives can be ruined without cause, and no simple remedy exists to put those lives back together or to punish those who wield the power recklessly.

I like to think the reading I did as an English major and still do today helped to give me the judgment necessary in focusing my prosecutions wisely.