The Securities and Exchange Commission announced that General Counsel Brian Cartwright will be leaving the agency to return to the private sector. During his tenure, he helped shape the Commission’s major policy and regulatory initiatives and counseled the Commission on virtually every matter that came before it, including enforcement actions, rulemakings, appellate briefs and adjudications.

Cartwright will remain with the Commission for a period of time, during which he will not entertain private-sector employment opportunities so that he may continue to serve the Commission on a full range of matters.

Cartwright became general counsel on Jan. 23, 2006. Before that, he was a partner in the international law firm of Latham & Watkins, where he had served as global chair of the firm’s practice representing public companies and as a member of the firm’s Executive Committee.

He began his legal career in 1980 after earning a J.D. from Harvard Law School, where he was president of the Harvard Law Review and winner of the Sears Prize. He served as law clerk to Justice Sandra Day O’Connor of the United States Supreme Court, and prior to that, as law clerk to U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Malcolm R. Wilkey of the D.C. Circuit.