Gary M. Brown

GARY M. BROWN, is the CEO of CMG Life Services Inc., a leading company in the life settlement industry, which he joined after a 31-year legal career during which he advised public companies on governance, securities, and other compliance issues. Prior to joining CMG, he also taught securities law at the Vanderbilt University School of Law and served as general counsel to the Ethics and Compliance Officer Association, the world's largest group of ethics and compliance professionals. While in private law practice, he was recognized in both Best Lawyers in America and Chambers - America's Leading Business Lawyers. 

Gary has been and continues to be a frequent instructor at securities programs and Co-chairs two programs (Understanding the Securities Laws and Securities Filings) for the Practising Law Institute. During 2002, he served as Special Counsel (Minority) to the United States Senate's Governmental Affairs Committee in its investigation of the collapse of Enron Corp. While serving in the Senate, he also worked with the Committee's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations ("PSI") and provided advice on aspects of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act while the legislation was being debated in the Senate. During that investigation, he provided testimony before the Subcommittee on the activities of major U.S. investment banks that assisted Enron in the manipulation of its financial statements. During August 2006, in a Senate investigation of abusive tax shelters, he provided testimony before PSI on how various structures employed in offshore and other tax devices circumvent compliance with U.S. federal securities laws.  During 2010, he was again retained by PSI to assist the Subcommittee in its investigation of Goldman Sachs during PSI's overall investigation, "Wall Street and the Financial Crisis," and related televised hearings. While serving the Senate in 2010, he also provided advice on aspects of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act while the legislation was being debated in the Senate.

Mr. Brown is the author of PLI's treatise, Securities Law and Practice Deskbook (previously titled Soderquist on the Securities Laws), and he frequently speaks and writes on areas including corporate governance, ethics, obligations of corporate directors and the reporting and disclosure obligations of public companies. His paper, The Implications of the U.S. Sarbanes-Oxley Act, was presented to an international corporate governance symposium in Berlin co-sponsored by the Japanese-German Center Berlin and the Max Planck Institute For Foreign Private and Private International Law and published by The Oxford Press. 

Mr. Brown's other publications include: "PLI's Guide to the SEC's New Executive Compensation Disclosure Rules," (Practising Law Institute 2007); "Ethics: It's Not Just For Lawyers Anymore," The Corporate Compliance and Regulatory Newsletter (Vol. 2, No. 8, April 2005); "Resisting Temptation - New Sentencing Guidelines Prod Companies to Take Ethics More Seriously,"  Legal Times (November 15, 2004); "Senate Investigator to Enron's Lawyers: It's Not Over," Corporate Board Member, Special Legal Issue - Summer 2003; "So Much Fraud, So Little Time - Senate Enron Investigation Bears (Possibly Bitter) Fruit," Vanderbilt Lawyer, Spring 2003; "Investigating Enron: Life After Enron and Sarbanes-Oxley (Sometimes History is Our Best Teacher)," Owen @ Vanderbilt, Summer 2003.

Mr. Brown received both his undergraduate and law degrees from Vanderbilt University, where he graduated Order of the Coif in 1980.