1. Brooksley Born resigned as chairperson on June 1,1999, shortly after Congress passed legislation prohibiting her agency from regulating derivatives.
22 Facts About Brooksley Born
1. 2.
Brooksley Born graduated from Abraham Lincoln High School at the age of 16.
3.
Brooksley Born then attended Stanford University, where she majored in English and was graduated with the class of 1961.
4.
Brooksley Born initially wanted to become a doctor, but a guidance counsellor at Stanford advised her against medicine, so she majored in English literature instead.
5.
Brooksley Born then attended Stanford Law School, one of only seven women in her class.
6.
Brooksley Born was the first female student ever to be named president of the Stanford Law Review.
7.
Brooksley Born received the "Outstanding Senior" award and graduated as valedictorian of the class of 1964.
8.
Immediately after law school Brooksley Born was selected as a law clerk to judge Henry Edgerton of the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
9.
Brooksley Born developed a practice representing clients in numerous complex litigation and arbitration cases involving financial market transactions.
10.
Brooksley Born was among the first female attorneys to systematically address inequities regarding how the laws treated women.
11.
Brooksley Born is one of the co-founders of the National Women's Law Center.
12.
Brooksley Born helped rewrite the American Bar Association rules to make it possible for more women and minorities to sit on federal bench.
13.
Brooksley Born was active in the American Bar Association, the largest professional organization of lawyers in the United States.
14.
Brooksley Born held several other senior positions in the ABA, including being named the first woman member of the ABA's Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary.
15.
In 1993, Brooksley Born's name was floated as a possible candidate for Attorney General of the United States, but Janet Reno was nominated.
16.
Brooksley Born was appointed to the CFTC on April 15,1994, by President Bill Clinton.
17.
Brooksley Born was particularly concerned about swaps, financial instruments that are traded over the counter between banks, insurance companies or other funds or companies, and thus have no transparency except to the two counterparties and the counterparties' regulators, if any.
18.
Brooksley Born stated, "I thought that LTCM was exactly what I had been worried about".
19.
Brooksley Born's warning was that there wasn't any regulation of them.
20.
An October 2009 Frontline documentary titled "The Warning" described Brooksley Born's thwarted efforts to regulate and bring transparency to the derivatives market, and the continuing opposition thereto.
21.
Brooksley Born has five adult children - two from a previous marriage to Jacob Landau and three stepchildren.
22.
When both of her children were school-age, Brooksley Born returned to practice full-time.