Lance represents public and private companies, investment advisers, hedge funds, private equity funds, financial intermediaries, boards of directors and high-net-worth individuals in a range of internal and government investigations, regulatory examinations, enforcement proceedings and litigation.

Prior to joining Akin, Lance served for more than ten years in the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) Enforcement Division in the Los Angeles Regional Office. During his decade-long tenure at the Commission, Lance conducted some of the SEC’s highest-priority and most complex investigations concerning public company disclosures, executive and director compensation, investment adviser violations, insider trading, offering frauds, FCPA violations, FINRA and Nasdaq compliance, Ponzi schemes, broker-dealer registration, Bank Secrecy Act reporting, director independence and accounting fraud. Notably, while at the SEC, he led a multi-year public company disclosure investigation into a multinational energy company, resulting in one of the largest settlements ever achieved by the agency.

Lance leverages his deep knowledge of the federal securities laws and intimate familiarity with the SEC and its processes, tactics and staff to his clients’ benefit—offering key insights to prevent misconduct before it occurs, minimize exposure and, if necessary, formulate an informed, strategic response to regulators. He brings a decade of hard-earned credibility with the SEC and its staff to representing clients before the agency. Lance also has extensive experience working closely with other regulatory authorities, including the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), the Federal Reserve, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), state securities regulators, and state and federal banking regulators.

Lance graduated with highest honors from Columbia Law School, where he was a James Kent Scholar. He received his B.A., summa cum laude, from Boston College. Prior to his tenure at the SEC, Lance was an associate in the litigation and bankruptcy groups of an elite Los Angeles-based law firm and clerked in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York for Judges Pamela Ann Rymer and Naomi Reice Buchwald, respectively.