Thank you, Hane, not only for that kind introduction, but all that you do for the investing public and the work you do at the Retail Strategy Task Force. For the students, I’ve had the opportunity to get to know Hane and her professional work, and it’s really terrific and really dedicated.

It’s good to be with you. As Hane said, I’m only speaking for myself, not my fellow commissioners or the staff.

I want to also thank Stacy and the SEC Office of the Ombudsman, as well as the Division of Enforcement’s Retail Strategy Task Force, for pulling this all together.

A warm hello to everyone involved in the law school investor advocacy clinics.

Today’s summit features a set of presentations and panels discussing the important work you do. I know that many of you are law students. And when you’re in law school, every day, you have to make important choices. Basically, how to spend your time. There’s the classes—prepping for the classes, for the cases and everything. It’s the forums to attend. It’s the internships to pursue. It’s summer jobs to pursue. Are you chasing after law review or law clinics?

All the things: travel time, family time, social and romantic time.

All these choices, and you’re deciding to spend some time in these clinics. I know that is a critical choice that you made. I want to thank you for making that choice, because you have so many other things pulling at you and so forth.

I think, in your decision to spend some time with the clinics, you’ve made two really important choices.

One, of course, is an affirmative choice to help others. I can’t thank you enough for that. I mean, it’s about how do we help our broad community—whether it’s helping our small community of 330-plus million Americans, or just that person who walks into that clinic and has a problem, and you help solve it for them. You’re that beacon of hope that somebody can help them through the legal thicket of the securities laws and what’s happening.

One of my predecessors, who I greatly honor and was glad to get to know quite well, is Arthur Levitt. He’s now in his early 90s. Arthur ran this commission, the Securities and Exchange Commission, in the 1990s. It was just a little over 25 years ago that he had this idea—setting up these clinics.

He called the choice that you’ve made, as individual law students, to participate in the clinics “a win-win proposition.”[1] He said, of course, the SEC and the people who are out there who you help are part of that, and they win. And he stood up the initiative as the first securities arbitration clinic in the country. That was where it started; that was in New York at Pace University and Fordham University, two of the 11 schools I think that are represented here today.

Arthur—Chair Levitt, if you wish—also said that your choice to participate in the clinics is a win for the legal system. And to quote Arthur, he said, “These clinics will help small investors who have nowhere else to turn” – think about that – “nowhere else to turn by providing them with high quality legal representation.” [2]

I don’t take this for granted.

I also think there’s another win in this proposition. In addition to offering the valuable legal advice and helping represent everyday investors, I think you’re making a choice also about your careers—about investing in yourself and your human capital, and learning about everyday investors’ struggle with the capital markets as well as sometimes the frauds and scams and microcap or Ponzi schemes that they’re dealing with. I think you’re also learning about public service as well.

So I would just say this. You’ve raised your hand to work on behalf of others in these clinics. And as you embark on your careers, you’re going to have many choices again. It won’t be choices about which class to take, whether to sign up for this clinic, or pursue this job or that job. But you’ll have choices about where to go in the future.

For some of you, if you feel the calling of public service—or if you feel the calling of public service and the securities laws—that’s great. You’re getting a little taste of it at the SEC, this great agency.

But it’s also if you just feel the calling of the private sector—and you feel that calling to go out to a law firm, go out to a corporation—I hope you keep the lessons of those individuals that came in and didn’t have somewhere else to turn, and they turned to you for this legal advice.

Ultimately, our system of law, our system of government itself, only works if it works for everyday Americans. I think you’re seeing that a little bit in these clinics.

The trust in our capital markets, the trust in companies issuing stock, the trust in asset managers—whether it’s human or robo-advisers—the trust in that system is built upon the rule of law, of course. That’s what you learn in law school. But in terms of securities law, it’s also about investor protection, including for the people who are coming in, people who may not readily and easily be heard in the day-to-day life of people at the highest of places, in the policy decision making.

I hope that you always take that with you and remind yourself of that. Our markets can only continue to grow if they are built on confidence and trust in our rule of law and the systems.

With that, I think you were all we’re going to ask me a few questions, and I’ve waxed and waned a little bit on this as well.

So, of course, I’m thanking you all for sharing your talents and investing your talents in this win-win proposition.