Dan M. Berkovitz
- Lecturer in Law
Dan M. Berkovitz has extensive experience in the regulation and operation of the U.S. financial markets. From 2021 to 2023 Dan was General Counsel of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Dan also has served as a Commissioner of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), after previously serving as the CFTC’s General Counsel. While at the CFTC Dan helped draft the legislation that became Title VII of the Dodd-Frank Act (swaps market regulation) and the CFTC’s regulations to implement the Act.
Dan also has been a partner and co-chair of the futures and derivatives practice at the law firm of WilmerHale. Additionally, he has been an Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University Law School, teaching derivatives regulation, and vice-chair of the American Bar Association Committee on Futures and Derivatives.
From 2001 to 2009 Dan was a senior staff lawyer for the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, where he led investigations into energy trading and markets and helped develop legislation that provided the CFTC with authority to regulate the trading of energy swaps. He also served as Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management, the nation’s largest nuclear and hazardous waste clean-up program.
Dan obtained an A.B., cum laude, in Physics from Princeton University and a J.D. from UC Law, San Francisco (previously UC Hastings College of Law).