David Woodcock, who chairs Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher’s Securities Enforcement Practice Group, will take over the SEC’s Division of Enforcement on May 4, 2026, replacing Sam Waldon, who has been acting director.
The hire flips the usual career arc: Gibson Dunn is the firm public companies call when the SEC shows up. Now their enforcement practice chair is running the SEC’s enforcement shop. Chairman Paul Atkins called it part of an ongoing “course correction,” prioritizing cases that deliver “meaningful investor protection and strengthen market integrity.”
Woodcock isn’t new to this. He ran the SEC’s Fort Worth Regional Office from 2011 to 2015, built the agency’s Financial Reporting and Audit Task Force, and oversaw investigations in nearly every major area of the SEC’s enforcement program. He’s also a CPA, which matters when the task force he created was specifically designed to detect accounting fraud and false financial statements.
Since leaving the SEC, Woodcock did a stint as in-house counsel at Exxon Mobil Corporation before landing at Gibson Dunn. He also teaches securities law at Texas A&M University School of Law.
The 1,000-person division he’s inheriting doesn’t change direction immediately, but the accounting fraud task force background is a clear tell about where Atkins wants the unit’s energy.
Woodcock takes the enforcement chair May 4.
— Marcus Webb