Elad Roisman is a member Cravath's Corporate Governance and Board Advisory Practice and the Financial Institutions Group (FIG) Practice and Co‑Head of the Digital Assets Practice. Prior to joining Cravath, Roisman was a Commissioner and Acting Chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
Roisman represents clients on a broad range of complex regulatory and strategic initiatives, mergers and acquisitions and capital markets transactions, as well as on SEC and congressional investigations, exams and inquiries. His practice includes advising public and private companies and other SEC registrants on strategic initiatives, disclosure, compliance, ESG and general corporate law matters as well as other SEC requirements. In addition, Roisman applies his deep knowledge of market structure regulation to advise fintech companies, investors, exchanges, trading intermediaries and other financial institutions on day‑to‑day as well as emerging regulatory matters.
Lawdragon Honors
| Honor | Year | Practice |
|---|---|---|
| The 2026 Lawdragon 500 Leading Lawyers in America | 2026 | Corporate Governance, Financial Institutions |
| The Lawdragon 500 Global Leaders in Crisis Management | 2025 | M&A, Governance, Strategy |
| The 2025 Lawdragon 500 Leading Lawyers in America | 2025 | Corporate Governance, Financial Institutions |
As a Commissioner and Acting Chairman of the SEC, Roisman played an instrumental role in shaping the agency’s rulemaking, enforcement and international work. He led the agency’s efforts to improve the proxy voting process, including amending the rules applicable to shareholder proposals and proxy solicitations. He also helped drive the SEC’s efforts to modernize the regulation of the U.S. equity markets and Treasury markets. Roisman represented the SEC before the U.S. Congress and other national and international regulatory entities, including the Financial Stability Oversight Council, the International Organization of Securities Commissions and the Financial Stability Board. During his tenure, Roisman voted on more than one hundred agency rulemakings, opinions, interpretations and guidance documents, and on over 1,000 enforcement actions, including some of the largest cases in the SEC’s history.
Roisman was appointed by the President and confirmed by the U.S. Senate to the SEC after serving as Chief Counsel for the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, where he helped shepherd major legislation, conducted congressional oversight and investigations, and helped set the committee’s agenda. Previously, he served as Counsel to then‑SEC Commissioner Daniel M. Gallagher, Chief Counsel at NYSE Euronext and as a corporate lawyer in private practice in New York.
Roisman is among the most influential voices at the intersection of law and policy, contributing his deep expertise to the discussions shaping the framework underlying new and evolving legal issues that arise with emerging technologies in a global economy. He has been named multiple times to Washingtonian’s List of “Washington DC’s 500 Most Influential People,” which highlights individuals outside of the White House “with deep subject-matter expertise who understand how to effectively drive action in Washington; those who grasp the nuances and complexities of specific policy areas; and experts in fields [the editors] believe will be particularly significant to the current slate of elected officials.”
Roisman is a frequent speaker, published author and thought leader on key legal and regulatory issues facing SEC registrants including those relating to market structure, corporate governance, public company and ESG‑related disclosures, digital assets, artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies. He has testified before Congress as a subject‑matter expert on several occasions, including recently on the SEC’s final rules requiring climate‑related disclosures for public companies, as well as on the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act of 2025 in a hearing entitled “American Innovation and the Future of Digital Assets: From Blueprint to a Functional Framework,” which sets forth a proposed digital asset market structure framework. In addition, Roisman is a recurring speaker and moderator on SEC and industry‑led roundtables.
Roisman grew up in Israel and New England. He received a B.A. cum laude from Cornell University in 2003 and a J.D. from Boston University School of Law in 2006.