SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce to Join Regent Law Faculty

Regent Law Names Hester Peirce to Faculty Role

Regent University School of Law announced connected May 19, 2026, that Hester M. Peirce volition articulation its module successful November 2026 arsenic an subordinate professor. The assignment sets the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) commissioner’s adjacent relation astatine the Virginia Beach instrumentality school.

Peirce volition articulation Regent Law aft a vocation spanning fiscal regulation, nationalist policy, securities law, and superior markets research. Regent Law said her assignment expands module extent successful securities regulation, fiscal markets, administrative governance, nationalist policy, integer assets, and nonrecreational formation. Her inheritance besides adds regulatory acquisition tied to markets, innovation, and organization governance.

Regent Law besides named Gregory F. Jacob elder subordinate dean and subordinate prof earlier the dean’s remarks. Jacob volition articulation successful the autumn semester aft elder ineligible roles astatine the White House, the U.S. Department of Justice, and the U.S. Department of Labor. Jacob besides served arsenic counsel to Vice President Mike Pence and lawman adjunct to the president. As solicitor of labor, helium oversaw important litigation nether much than 180 national labour and employment laws. Together, the appointments fortify the school’s absorption connected ineligible work successful analyzable nationalist and economical institutions.

Dean S. Ernie Walton said:

“Greg Jacob and Hester Peirce person served astatine the highest levels of law, government, and nationalist life.”

SEC Crypto Role Shapes Peirce’s Next Chapter

Peirce has served arsenic an SEC commissioner since 2018. The SEC website says President Donald J. Trump appointed her, and she was sworn successful connected January 11, 2018. It lists her word arsenic expiring successful 2025 and identifies her arsenic person of the SEC’s Crypto Task Force. The SEC website besides says Peirce worked astatine Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering, present WilmerHale, and clerked for Judge Roger Andewelt connected the Court of Federal Claims.

The SEC website present lists Paul S. Atkins arsenic president since 2025, with Peirce and Mark T. Uyeda arsenic commissioners. It shows Peirce’s word expiring successful 2025, but SEC argumentation allows commissioners to support serving for astir 18 months aft their presumption expire if nary replacement is confirmed. That holdover play explains wherefore Peirce remains listed arsenic a commissioner aft her stated word expiration.

Commissioner Mark Uyeda antecedently said:

“I look guardant to the efforts of Commissioner Peirce to pb regulatory argumentation connected crypto, which involves aggregate SEC divisions and offices.”

Digital plus advocates often notation to Peirce arsenic “ Crypto Mom” for her disapproval of regularisation by enforcement. Her Crypto Task Force relation places her astatine the halfway of the SEC’s displacement toward clearer frameworks, manufacture engagement, realistic compliance paths, and targeted enforcement. The task force’s enactment includes crypto taxonomy, secondary marketplace trading, custody, integer plus status, and imaginable merchandise features for crypto exchange-traded products. Its docket besides includes questions astir staking, in-kind creations, redemptions, disclosure requirements, and marketplace structure.

The task force’s separation from the SEC Enforcement Division signals a argumentation absorption connected frameworks, disclosure standards, and manufacture collaboration. Peirce’s harmless harbor conception would springiness token teams clip to scope web maturity earlier facing afloat securities registration obligations. She has argued that crypto firms request applicable compliance routes, nationalist guidance, and rules designed for blockchain-based markets alternatively of retroactive enforcement actions.