Business Overview

I started my career as an Assistant Attorney General in New York enforcing the Martin Act and prosecuting real estate syndicators. After five years I left the Attorney General’s office to go into private practice. Within two years I became General Counsel to a regional broker dealer. That broker dealer grew during the five years that I was General Counsel from a sales force of 200 with 12 employees to a sales force of 800 with over 100 employees. By 1985 that broker dealer was one of the largest independent contractor broker dealers in the country. In 1985 I joined the Morristown law firm of Schenck, Price, Smith & King as a partner. While there I did transactional work forming and then representing a small regional broker dealer, drafting private placement offerings for several start-up companies, and representing clients on securities matters.In 1991 I established my own firm to concentrate on securities litigation. I was then able to represent clients on a contingency basis. I continued to do transactional work and in 1993 and 1994 I took a golf clothing manufacturer public. The next year I successfully represented the president of a public computer services company in defending a hostile proxy takeover. In 1996 I drafted a private placement memorandum to raise in excess of $20,000,000 to purchase, develop and operate a private golf club in Croton-on-Hudson, New York. I continued to represent the developer until the Offering was completed in 1999 with the club fully subscribed and the property fully developed.From 1996 to 1998, when a global settlement agreement was achieved, I was retained by an insurance carrier as co-counsel to defend a registered representative who sold in excess of $14,000,000 in lease interests issued by promoters who were alleged to have perpetrated a $970,000,000 securities fraud.In 2000 I received a significant recovery in a joint state court and arbitration proceeding representing the estate of an elderly securities fraud victim. A total of $946,715.95 was received by award in just the arbitration, after 17 days of hearings.In November 2007 I argued and won an appeal in the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirming an arbitration award I won years earlier.