James Cappoli

James Cappoli is the General Counsel of the PCAOB. In this role, he provides legal advice and counsel on all PCAOB operations and manages the Office of the General Counsel (OGC) to execute the organization's statutory mandate.

Before being named General Counsel, Mr. Cappoli served as the PCAOB’s Acting General Counsel, from July 2023 to January 2024, and previously as a Deputy General Counsel in OGC. He joined the PCAOB in September 2022 from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) where he spent more than 14 years in the Office of the General Counsel, most recently as the Assistant General Counsel for Enforcement Matters. As Assistant General Counsel, Mr. Cappoli managed the entire enforcement-related workload for OGC and advised upon various SEC regulatory matters. During his tenure at the SEC, Mr. Cappoli also served as Senior Advisor to an SEC Acting Chair and previously as Special Counsel to an SEC Commissioner. Mr. Cappoli was awarded the SEC Chairman’s Award for Excellence and the SEC’s Excellence in Leadership Award.

Prior to joining the SEC, Mr. Cappoli was an Enforcement Attorney at the Massachusetts Securities Division with the Secretary of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts where he was responsible for investigating and litigating state securities laws violations. During this time, Mr. Cappoli was also a member of the Market and Regulatory Policy Committee for the North American Securities Administrators Association.

Mr. Cappoli earned a J.D. from Northeastern University School of Law in Boston, Massachusetts, as well as a Bachelor of Science in business with honors from Indiana University, Kelly School of Business.