CHSS Distinguished Alumni - Modern and Classical Languages

Mia Zur is associate general counsel in the Capital Markets Group at the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), where she advises on the rules governing how securities are traded in the United States. 

She came to George Mason’s modern and classical languages program and left with something more durable than fluency: the habit of reading closely and the conviction that precision in language is precision in thought. This is a habit she has applied for three decades in public service. After beginning her career on Capitol Hill with the House Armed Services Committee and Representative Walter B. Jones, Jr., she earned her JD from the Catholic University of America’s Columbus School of Law, where she was part of the national championship team in the 2001 Kaufman Securities Moot Court Competition, argued before Justice Antonin Scalia, and served as president of the Securities Law Students Association. 

Zur then spent twenty-three years at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s Division of Trading and Markets, including service as counsel to a commissioner, shaping the market structure rules that protect ordinary investors every time they make a trade.