Securities Arbitration Clinic Students Successful on Two Cases

Students from the Securities Arbitration Clinic (SAC) at New York Law School recently settled two complex securities arbitration cases successfully.

In the first matter, the SAC represented a Korean immigrant and single mother whose investment adviser failed to follow her instructions to liquidate her brokerage account during the recent market turmoil. This matter presented its own unique challenges because the current SAC students (who inherited this case from last year’s SAC team) had to quickly prepare for the arbitration hearing which was scheduled for late September. Accordingly, the SAC students spent several hours per day, and worked over the course of several weekends (our client was only available to meet on Sundays), analyzing documents, preparing witnesses, developing opening and closing statements, and preparing various hearing exhibits. Because of the students’ efforts, they were able to negotiate a very favorable settlement for their client. Respondent was represented by very experienced defense counsel. The SAC team was comprised of Melissa Ferraro, Oscar Hagstrom, Sarin Chee and Rahim Virani.

In the second matter, the SAC represented a 70-year-old retiree whose stockbroker recommended and sold her an “equity-indexed annuity” that was unsuitable based on her age, investment objectives (i.e. need for liquidity) and risk tolerance. This matter was also scheduled for hearing early this semester and required the new SAC students to “get up to speed” very quickly and prepare the case for hearing. The students also filed a motion to compel outstanding discovery and submitted a comprehensive pre-hearing brief. In addition to these challenges, Respondents were represented by a very obstreperous opposing counsel. which made settlement negotiations all that more difficult. Despite these challenges, the SAC team of Christine Garg, Kate Howard, Justin Sherman, and Ravin Patel did a fantastic job and obtained a very good settlement for their client.