SEC Announces Arrival of New Administrative Law Judge

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
2014-208

Washington D.C., Sept. 22, 2014 —

The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced that Jason S. Patil begins work at the agency this week as an Administrative Law Judge.

Earlier this summer, the SEC announced the hiring of Administrative Law Judge James E. Grimes and three law clerks who along with Mr. Patil nearly double the staff of the Office of Administrative Law Judges, which received more than 200 assignments to conduct public hearings and issued 34 Initial Decisions in fiscal year 2013.

Mr. Patil assumes his new role on September 22.  He began his legal career at the U.S. Department of Justice, where he worked from 1998 to mid-2012.  He started as an attorney in the Executive Office for Immigration Review, assisting administrative law judges in cases involving asylum, detention, and other matters.  He became a trial attorney in 2002 and spent more than 10 years litigating civil cases, including litigation involving the anthrax letter attacks and the World Trade Center disaster site.  In August 2012, he was seconded for two years to the Multinational Force in Egypt, where he provided legal advice on its operations in the Sinai and supervised criminal investigations and contract matters.

A member of the U.S. Navy Reserve, Mr. Patil was the lead interrogator for a Joint Operations Task Force in Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2007 and received the Bronze Star Medal in 2008 for his leadership and interrogator acumen.  He served at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad from January 2010 to February 2011 overseeing U.S. efforts to improve governance and rule of law in Iraq.

Mr. Patil received his Bachelor of Arts degree with distinction in political science in 1995 from Stanford University and was captain of the Stanford Debate Society.  He graduated with honors from the University of Chicago Law School in 1998 and received his L.L.M, also with distinction, from Georgetown University Law Center in 2009.

Administrative law judges are independent judicial officers who rule on allegations of securities law violations in administrative proceedings instituted by the Commission.  They conduct public hearings, issue initial decisions, and have authority to impose a broad range of sanctions, including ordering disgorgement, civil penalties, censures, cease-and-desist orders, and the suspension or revocation of registrations of securities and certain financial professionals and firms, including brokers, dealers, investment companies and investment advisers, municipal securities dealers and municipal advisors, transfer agents, and nationally recognized statistical rating organizations.