Robert B. Shapiro

Background

Robert B. Shapiro was born on September 12, 1949, in New York, New York, United States. New York City was then the largest city in the United States and one of the principal centers of American finance, insurance, and corporate law.

Education

Shapiro received a Bachelor of Science degree from The Ohio State University in 1970. Founded in 1870 as a land-grant institution in Columbus, Ohio, the university combined scientific, agricultural, and professional instruction within a broad public curriculum.

He then studied at Syracuse University, where he received the Juris Doctor in 1973. Syracuse, a private university in upstate New York founded in 1870, offered legal training that prepared graduates for practice in the state and beyond.

His business training came through the Wharton School of Finance at the University of Pennsylvania, which awarded him a Master of Business Administration in 1974. Founded in 1881, Wharton was the first collegiate business school in the United States and became a leading center for the study of finance.

Shapiro completed a Master of Laws in Taxation at Georgetown University in 1978. Georgetown, a Jesuit university founded in 1789 in Washington, D.C., is known for its law center, which offers specialized graduate programs in taxation.

Career

Shapiro was admitted to the New York bar in 1974. In 1975 he joined the Securities and Exchange Commission as an attorney-advisor in the Division of Corporate Finance and the Division of Investment Management, a position he held until 1979. Created in 1934 to administer federal securities laws, the SEC supervises corporate disclosure and the regulation of investment advisers and funds, and attorney-advisors supported the agency's legal and regulatory work.

From 1979 to 1982 he served as senior counsel with the American Insurance Association, a trade association representing property and casualty insurers. His responsibilities there covered investment regulation, taxation, and Treasury Department rules governing surety bonds, subjects that remained central to his later legal work.

Shapiro was admitted to the District of Columbia bar in 1978. He practiced with The Bernstein Law Firm, PLLC, which succeeded the Law Offices of George K. Bernstein, established in 1974. The firm handled insurance corporate, regulatory, and litigation matters, including mergers and acquisitions, licensing, insolvency, reinsurance, and international transactions, and it advised investors, insurers, and regulators in federal and state courts and before legislative bodies. He was a member of the firm and practiced there for more than twenty years in Washington, D.C., and New York City.

In 1984 Shapiro lectured for the Practising Law Institute on insurance products under the securities laws. The Practising Law Institute, based in New York, provides continuing legal education to practicing attorneys.

Shapiro also served on the board of Quanta Capital Holdings, a publicly traded Bermuda-based insurance and reinsurance holding company, and guided the company through an acquisition.

He later became an attorney in the Washington, D.C., office of Carlton Fields, where he counsels insurers and insurance producers on regulatory requirements for property and casualty and life and annuity products. His work there also includes reinsurance regulation, the administration of reinsurance agreements, and the rehabilitation and liquidation of insurers.

Membership

Shapiro is a member of The District of Columbia Bar, the bar association for lawyers admitted to practice in the District of Columbia. He is also a member of the Section on Corporation, Banking and Business Law of the American Bar Association. The American Bar Association, founded in 1878, is one of the largest voluntary professional associations of American lawyers, and its sections address specialized fields of practice, including corporate, banking, and business law.

• The District of Columbia Bar , United States

  1978

• Member, Section on Corporation, Banking and Business Law

  American Bar Association , United States