boardroom_tableJuly 30th marks the 20th anniversary of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, offering an opportunity for reflection by corporate lawyers on how their practice has been influenced—and altered—by this seminal corporate responsibility legislation.

Such reflection should extend not only to the law itself, but also to the abuses and practices it was intended to address and to the changes it prompted to the role attorneys are expected to play in connection with the corporate client, and its governance.

The Act was the byproduct of a bipartisan Congressional effort to respond strongly to widespread accounting scandals and notorious incidents of corporate fraud in 2000-2001. This fraud prompted several economy-shaking bankruptcies (including Enron and WorldCom) and significantly undermined public confidence in corporate financial statements.