Clinical Professor Emily Underwood, ’13, was recently appointed to a four-year term on the Small Business Capital Formation Advisory Committee (SBCFAC) by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

The SBCFAC meets quarterly with SEC commissioners to provide advice and recommendations on SEC rules, regulations, and policy matters related to small businesses, including smaller public companies. The meetings are open to the public.

Underwood is the Bluhm-Helfand Director of the Innovation Clinic, which offers a broad range of transactional and regulatory legal assistance to startups and venture capital firms in Chicago and across the country. She also serves the George Shultz Innovation Fund—a multi-million-dollar fund established from UChicago’s endowment—in structuring investments and managing regulatory and legal issues.

Over the last ten years, Underwood has developed a wide breadth of securities law experience, representing both private issuers and investors, public companies, and private companies going public. Together with students in the Innovation Clinic, she has participated in the administrative agency rulemaking process, helping to shape federal law with small business needs in mind.

“Many small businesses, including some of the startups we work with in the Innovation Clinic, are too intimidated by securities law compliance to fundraise without a lawyer, but can’t afford to hire one,” said Underwood. “It ends up being a significant roadblock to raising capital for many worthy businesses, and to deploying capital for many would-be investors. It can also lead to accidental and unknowing violations of law that could have been avoided with representation or a more straightforward regulatory regime.”

An alumna of the Law School, Underwood said the SEC appointment represents a full-circle moment for her career. “My first exposure to securities law was as a 2L in Professor (now Dean) Thomas Miles’ Securities Regulation course in Spring 2012. I referred to that outline many times in my first years of private practice at Sidley while working on a $1.1 billion IPO. It’s an unexpected, uniquely rewarding moment to be back here as a faculty member, and to be able to play some small role in shaping the law that I first learned about in the classrooms in this building.”

The SBCFAC has eighteen SEC-appointed members who represent a diverse array of entrepreneurs, investors, and advisors. Underwood is one of four new members to join the group this fall.