Susan E. Bryant provides advice to firms in the financial services businesses on securities, regulatory, compliance, transactional, corporate and related matters, based on over 40 years of experience as an attorney in private practice, in-house counsel to large financial services complexes; and as a regulator. She regularly advises clients on complex securities issues, regulatory issues and general business matters. Her clients include entities regulated by securities laws: small niche broker-dealers and investment advisers, firms providing both brokerage and advisory services and issuers of private offerings.
Susan recently returned to Oklahoma after practicing law in Connecticut and Maine at her own boutique firm, Bryant Law, PC, from 1997 to 2015 and at a large multi-state firm based in Portland, Maine from 2015 to 2017. From 1993 to 1997, Susan served as senior securities counsel for Aetna Inc., where she served Secretary of the Aetna mutual funds; structured and registered with the SEC mutual funds, variable annuity and variable life insurance products; provided advice and support to mutual funds and their boards of directors; provided securities and compliance advice to mutual fund managers, broker-dealers and investment adviser subsidiaries; and assisted in establishing new mutual funds, variable products and a financial planning division. From 1991 to 1993, Susan served as General Counsel and Corporate Secretary of First Investors Corporation (currently, foresters financial services, Inc.), a mutual fund complex based on Wall Street. She was hired to oversee and resolve regulatory and compliance issues asserted by regulators in actions involving the broker-dealer and investment adviser subsidiaries of the company.
From 1986 to 1991, Susan was the head of the Oklahoma Department of Securities where she oversaw a staff of 39 whose duties included broker-dealer and investment adviser registration, examination and licensing; enforcing the state securities laws through administrative, civil and criminal actions; review and evaluation of securities registration filings; and issuing responses to interpretive opinion requests. She personally developed, drafted and lobbied for the adoption of amendments to the Oklahoma Securities Act and Regulations. While serving as the senior securities regulator employed by the State of Oklahoma, she was active with the North American Securities Administrators Association (NASAA), serving as a Section Chair, a member of the board, as President Elect in 1988 and as President in 1989. During that time, she worked closely with staff of the SEC and FINRA on enforcement, administrative, rule-making and legislative matters; testified before Congressional Committees on matters involving investor protection, enforcement of securities laws and regulation of broker dealers and investment advisers and overseeing and negotiating the terms of a multi-state settlement with Drexel Burnham. She was also active as a speaker on securities, regulatory, enforcement, investor protection and compliance issues throughout the United States and in Canada.
Susan started her career with the then largest firm in Oklahoma City, working on sophisticated, multi-level, private and public limited partnership securities offerings, primarily involving oil and gas and other tax sheltered investment programs.
Susan returned to Oklahoma in late 2017 from Maine, where, in addition to her legal practice, she managed a vacation rental business, served on the board of directors of the Camden Chamber of Commerce and was instrumental in merging the Camden Chamber with the Rockland, Maine Chamber of Commerce into the Penobscot Bay Regional Chamber. She is an avid photographer and has won awards for her work in Connecticut and Massachusetts and recently had a gallery showing of her work in Rockland, Maine. She enjoys music and has rejoined the Norman Community Choral Society, where she sang many years ago.
Susan has spent her life living in a number of places, but considers Norman, Oklahoma her home. She has two grown daughters – one living in Astoria, New York who works as a production state manager in the theater; and the other living in southern New Jersey with husband and two children, and works as a Veterinarian (DVM, OSU 2008).
EDUCATION
- Wellesley College, (B.A., with Honors, 1970)
- University of Oklahoma College of Law (J.D., Order of the Coif, 1975)
Contact info:
405.364.3346
sebryant@phillipsmurrah.com