Smiley Bishop & Porter LLP is proud to serve a diverse range of clients. Our clients share a common need for an aggressive and experienced investor rights advocate. Our job is to level the playing field between investors and Wall Street brokerage firms, with their legions of highly paid lawyers. This is a challenge we relish.
We represent individual investors from all walks of life. Our clients include high net worth individuals, retirees, and manufacturing workers. We have represented charities, estates, trusts, pension plans, and governmental agencies. We have also served as counsel for an SEC appointed receiver. Our clients have included any number of companies, large and small, as well as partnerships and other business entities.
Here is a sampling of the kinds of people we represent:
- Retirees – Financial advisors and brokerage firms target retirees because they know that most of the wealth in the United States is concentrated in Americans over the age of 60. Usually, these clients have accumulated a nest egg through company sponsored retirement plans and a lifetime of savings. It is extremely important that the assets of retirees be invested prudently for the long-term.
- Sophisticated Individuals – Doctors, lawyers, accountants, business owners, and foreign investors who have achieved wealth, business success, academic honors, and investment experience can still be the victim of investment fraud or mismanagement.
- Pension Plans and Trusts – Individual and institutional retirement plans have every right to rely on the skill and competence of the professionals hired to manage their money. When the funds in these plans are exposed to unnecessary risks, the fund’s manager can be held liable.
- Corporate Executives – Corporate executives can suffer significant losses in their 401(k) and stock options from negligent advice.
- Working Class – Our clients have included factory workers, phone company employees, bus drivers, firemen, and others whose accumulated retirement benefits have been rolled over into IRAs and invested with unscrupulous or inept brokers who have destroyed a lifetime’s worth of savings in a matter of months.
- Institutional Investors – We have represented banks, insurance companies, charities, and other institutional investors. We have successfully recovered losses in their working capital and investment portfolios.
- Professional Athletes – Many athletes obtain large paychecks and bonuses during their playing careers which are sometimes very brief. For many, these earnings represent the vast majority of their lifetime earnings potential and must last for decades. When financial advisors embezzle these funds or invest them recklessly, the losses can be devastating.
- Securities Industry Employees – Employees of Wall Street firms are sometimes victimized by the firms that employ them. We have handled bonus and compensation claims, non-compete disputes, and other controversies involving securities industry professionals. While many of these claims settle and are confidential, some do result in public awards. To see some of our public awards click here.
We are very pleased and honored to obtain a significant number of our clients from the referral of other lawyers across the nation, as well as from previous clients, brokers, accountants, and financial planners.
