ABOUT LOIS YUROW

Professional background. I began my career as a corporate and securities attorney, first with Schiff Hardin & Waite (now Schiff Hardin) in Chicago, and then with Pitney, Hardin, Kipp & Szuch (now Day Pitney) in Morristown, New Jersey. On the corporate side, I did basic transactional work, including mergers and acquisitions. On the securities law side, my work included helping public companies understand and satisfy their obligations under state and federal securities laws, advising issuers and underwriters engaged in public offerings of debt and equity, and counseling issuers planning private placements.

As a lawyer, I reviewed lots of securities disclosure documents that were sorely in need of editing. When the SEC proposed rules to require plain English in sections of prospectuses, I realized I wasn’t the only one who saw a problem. Those proposed (now final) rules inspired my transition from practicing attorney to independent writer and editor.

Publications. I was Managing Editor of Wall Street Lawyer, a monthly newsletter focused on securities law, for seven years, and Managing Editor of RealCorporateLawyer.com, a (now defunct) RR Donnelley website serving corporate and securities lawyers, for five. My articles have appeared in IR Update, The M&A Lawyer, Law Practice Magazine, Accountability Central, and New Jersey Law Journal. I am the co-author of Mutual Fund Regulation and Compliance Handbook, a Thomson Reuters publication that is updated annually. I contributed a chapter entitled “Plain English Writing for Compliance Professionals” to Modern Compliance: Best Practices for Securities & Finance, Vol. II (Walters Kluwer, 2017).

Speeches and workshops. I regularly make presentations on plain English, disclosure, and other securities law topics. In 1998, I was an adjunct professor in the M.A. Program in Corporate and Organizational Communication at Fairleigh Dickinson University in New Jersey.

Education. I earned a Master’s degree in Communication and Information Studies from Rutgers University in December 2016. I received my J.D., with High Honors, from The National Law Center at The George Washington University, where I was awarded Order of the Coif. I earned my B.A., cum laude, from Brandeis University.