Show Notes:

Finding a niche in investment fraud. “I was working at a small firm. I was actually a tax lawyer. A gentleman walked in with a problem with his prudential stockbroker. My boss turned the case down, but I started talking to him and I learned that there are claims that you can pursue against a financial advisor. That case really started my career. We ended up having a jury trial for about a month, and we got a 261 million jury verdict, which I believe is still the largest jury verdict in the state of Ohio. That’s the case that launched my career and my firm to focus on this practice area.”

Elder financial exploitation. “Most of my clients are senior citizens, retirees, and the financial exploitation of the elderly is the number one problem in this area. They’re easy targets, folks that are retired or elderly. They may be living alone. They may be suffering cognitive decline. The reason why the elderly are the primary targets for investment fraud is because they’re the ones that have earned the money over decades of hard work. And then when you add on the fact that they’re often living alone and they have this cognitive decline, it’s really the perfect storm. And that’s the biggest problem we’re seeing.”

Advocacy and regulation. “I’m currently serving as the president of PIABA. We advocate on behalf of individual investors, with the SEC, with FINRA. Brokers can erase complaints. There’s an expungement process where brokers can erase complaints. We’re really the only voice. The securities industry has almost an unlimited budget. They’ve got a tremendous amount of lobbyists… But we do a lot of good to advance investor protection. And I’m grateful for the opportunity to do it.”

The role of support. “Without my wife, none of this would have happened. My firm, my practice, the clients that I’ve represented, or the book. She was my number one editor. There was one time when I gave her part of the manuscript to read and she had a pen. She circled it and said, ‘You can do better.’ So that’s what I did.