PROFESSOR WILLIAMS PUBLISHES ARTICLE EXAMINING THE REGULATION OF PUBLIC COMPANY AUDIT FIRMS
February 2022 — Professor Sarah Williams recently authored the first in a series of planned articles exploring the successful formula for effective auditor oversight. Her article, titled “The Alchemy of Effective Auditor Oversight,” evaluates the verification process through which accounting firms are approved to audit public companies. It identifies the need for innovation in the verification process to promote improved quality of audits. Her article encourages abandonment of antiquated concepts that influenced approaches to verification during the bygone era of auditor self-regulation. The article, published by Lewis & Clark Law Review, can be found online. Professor Williams’ planned series is inspired by proposals made by former President Donald Trump, U.S. Representative Bill Huizenga, and others, to subsume the current audit regulator, the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, into U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
Professor Sarah Williams current serves as an Assistant Professor at Penn State Dickinson Law, where her research focuses on the intersection of federal securities regulation and accounting. Prior to joining Dickinson Law, Professor Williams practiced law as a securities regulator. She was Deputy Director at the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board and Associate General Counsel at NASD, now FINRA. She spent several years at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, serving as staff attorney and branch chief in its Division of Enforcement, then as Counsel to SEC Commissioner Isaac C. Hunt, Jr. Professor Williams began her legal career as an associate at Arnold & Porter in Washington, D.C.