Quickly and unexpectedly, lives and careers can be lost or altered forever. A routine trip to the doctor or to the grocery store can result in catastrophic injuries due to the negligent or reckless conduct of others. In such situations, our firm has helped individuals injured by such conduct recover what they need to repair and rebuild their lives and their dignity, to safeguard their families’ futures. We simply believe that securing appropriate compensation and in such cases is fair and just, and we strive to achieve this result for our clients.
Individual investors sometimes find themselves at the mercy of their financial advisors and brokers, those to whom they have given their trust and their hard-earned savings to invest. Too often, these financial advisors and brokers work to enrich themselves rather than their clients – sometimes through outright fraud and other times through sheer negligence. In either case, investors have remedies. We have pursued these aggressively for our clients. In one case we won and collected the largest punitive damages award for an individual investor against a major securities firm, Wachovia Securities, in the history of the NASD – punitive damages of over $12,000,000 on a loss of about $4,000,000.
When large businesses engage in conduct designed to benefit themselves at the expense of their clients or customers, it is often difficult for the individual who has been injured by the conduct to recover. The resources of large companies make it an uphill battle. Our firm, however, has successfully litigated complex cases for individuals seeking to recover losses in these circumstances. For example, the firm negotiated a confidential settlement in a case brought against Quellos, a large West Coast hedge fund, the international accounting firm KPMG, and Wachovia Bank, one of the largest banks in the United States, arising out of fraudulent tax shelters sold to hundreds of individual investors. It has also successfully represented individuals in various other business-related litigation.