Our employment law practice continues to be quite active as many brokerage firms have restructured and consolidated after mergers and acquisitions. Brokerage firm employees have been dismissed, offered severance packages or been reassigned to new positions. Our law firm has been called upon to advise many clients with regard to the new employment contracts or […]
Top 10 Tips for Dealing With Your Stockbroker in a Bear Market
By Brian N. Smiley If you are going to make money in today’s unpredictable market and don’t have the time or the skill to make your own investment choices, you may have to select a professional advisor to help you. But that is easier said than done. As a group, stockbrokers are no more or […]
Reading and Understanding Brokerage Account Statements
Co-Authored by J. Michael Bishop AAII Journal Every month, individual investors across the country receive brokerage account statements. Many investors find it difficult to understand the information contained in the statements and after a quick review of their account values never look at their statements again. There is, however, a method behind the seeming madness […]
Stockbroker-Customer Disputes: Making a Case for Arbitration
By Brian N. Smiley As the bulls run wild on Wall Street, there is increasing evidence that the nation’s securities markets have also provided a home for vipers. Names of prominent executives and major brokerage houses have appeared under headlines announcing investigations, indictments and plea bargains for insider trading, market manipulation. Conspiracy, and other conduct […]
Limited Partners Face Hidden Risks, Fees
If you own a limited partnership interest, or are considering such an investment, you should be aware of a less-recognized form of investor abuse: limited partnership fraud. Because limited partners do not participate in day-to-day partnership operations and there is no board of directors to review management decisions, the general partner has almost complete control […]
Ponzi Schemes
Even in the wake of the “Bernie” Madoff scandal, investors continue to lose billions of dollars in Ponzi schemes. Stripped to its bare bones, a Ponzi scheme is a ploy where a promoter pays one set of investors with money raised from other investors. Ponzi promoters promise investors high returns but offer few details, except […]
A Warning About Variable Annuities
Brokers love variable annuities, but most investors should view them as toxic investments. Variable annuities are basically mutual funds contained within a highly expensive insurance “wrapper.” They are attractive to brokers because they offer almost unbelievably high commission payouts which the client never sees, but pay through high annual expenses and large “surrender charges” which […]
John C. Porter, Jr. and Brian Smiley Recognized by Georgia Super Lawyers Magazine
John C. Porter, Jr. and Brian Smiley have been named by Georgia Super Lawyers magazine as two of the top attorneys in Georgia for 2011. Only 5% of the lawyers in the state are named by Super Lawyers. The selections for this esteemed list are made by the research team at Super Lawyers, which is […]
Equity Indexed Annuities
Here’s a proposition: Fearful investors provide a ready market for products that sound safe, but aren’t. Exhibit A in support of that proposition? The Equity Indexed Annuity, or EIA. An EIA is an annuity, meaning it’s a contract to pay a guaranteed minimum interest rate, which is then goosed up by aligning the rate it […]
Brian Smiley Reelected to the PIABA Board of Directors
Brian Smiley was reelected to the Board of Directors of the Public Investors Arbitration Bar Association. This was for his third two-year term. During the organization’s annual meeting in Ponte Vedra Beach Florida, Brian conducted a members only session on brokerage firm defense tactics.
