Roberta S. Karmel is Centennial Professor of Law and Co-Director of the Dennis J. Block Center for the Study of International Business Law at Brooklyn Law School. She was engaged in the private practice of law in New York City for over thirty years. She was a partner of Rogers & Wells from 1972-77 and from 1980-85, and then of counsel from 1985-86. From 1987 to 2002 she was a partner and then of counsel at Kelley Drye & Warren LLP. She was a Commissioner of the Securities and Exchange Commission from 1977-80, a public director of the New York Stock Exchange, Inc. from 1983-89, and a member of the National Adjudicatory Council of the NASDR from 1998-2001.
From 1994-2006 Professor Karmel was a director of the Kemper National Insurance Companies and from 1980-2000 she was a director of Mallinckrodt Group Inc. (and its predecessors International Minerals & Chemical Corporation and Imcera Group, Inc.). Also, from 2003-2006, she was a director of the National Association of Corporate Directors N.Y. Chapter.
She was born May 4, 1937, in Chicago, Illinois. She received a B.A. cum laude from Radcliffe College in 1959 and an LL.B. cum laude from New York University School of Law in 1962.
Professor Karmel is a Trustee of the Practising Law Institute. She is an Advisor to the Section of Business Law of the American Bar Association, and is a member of the ABA Presidential Task Force on Financial Markets Regulatory Reform. She is a member of the American Law Institute, a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation, and on the Boards of Advisors of Securities Regulation and Law Report, The Review of Securities and Commodities Regulation, and the World Securities Law Report. She was a Fulbright Scholar in 1991-92.
Her honors include membership in the Phi Beta Kappa Alpha Iota of Massachusetts at Harvard College (Hon.) 2009, the American Bar Association Women Lawyers of Achievement Award 2008, and an Honorary Doctorate of Humanities, Kings College 1998.
Professor Karmel is the author of over 50 articles in books and legal journals, and writes a regular column on securities regulation for the New York Law Journal. She is a frequent lecturer on financial regulation. Her book entitled Regulation by Prosecution: The Securities and Exchange Commission vs. Corporate America was published by Simon and Schuster in 1982.