If you’ve heard the terms “securities attorney” or “investment lawyer” and don’t know what they mean, you are not alone. With this article, we hope to clarify what a securities lawyer does and how a securities lawyer may assist you.
Generally, a securities lawyer is an attorney who specializes in laws governing the securities industry. These laws include federal and state statutes, regulations, and judicial decisions that govern the offer, sale, issuance, registration, and marketing of securities, or financial instruments used to raise capital. A securities lawyer may represent corporations with regard to securities filings, compliance and transactions. These attorneys often gather disclosure documents and aim to ensure their client’s compliance with SEC regulations. At large law firms, these securities attorneys may advise corporations on how to “go public” and aid these companies with issues related to their expansion and ongoing capital requirements.
Other securities lawyers, like the lawyers at Lowey, focus on representing individual investors and institutional investors who have been the victims of fraud or were misled during the investment process due to corporate misconduct and are seeking restitution. Our attorneys diligently investigate corporations who have harmed our clients and when appropriate, file lawsuits against the responsible parties. Through these actions, and especially if the case is a shareholder derivative action, securities attorneys help bring about important corporate reform by holding corporations liable for their wrongdoings.
Securities litigation work is much like other types of litigation and includes the drafting of documents, conducting discovery, doing legal research, and preparing materials for hearings. Securities attorneys spend time speaking with clients over the phone and advising investors on the many types of claims available to them such as potentially becoming part of a 10b-5 class action or initiating a books and records demand for a derivative action.
Many people believe only wealthy people need lawyers in their financial affairs. This statement could not be further from the truth. Unfortunately, fraudulent behavior and mistakes made by investment professionals are common. In most cases, ordinary investors, such as teachers, nurses or retirees have lost money due to fraud or other corporate misdeeds. With the help of a securities class action attorney, individual shareholders can come together to form a class action and sue corporations for their misconduct.
Lowey Dannenberg is committed to recovering damages for shareholders victimized by securities fraud and directors’ and officers’ breaches of fiduciary duty. Lowey Dannenberg has extensive experience representing clients in federal securities cases, including cases involving: financial fraud, auction rate securities, options backdating, failed corporate governance, stockholder agreement disputes and customer/brokerage firm arbitration proceedings. Lowey securities litigation practice has recovered billions of dollars on behalf of defrauded investors. The firm has also achieved landmark, long term corporate governance changes at public companies, including reversing results of elections and returning corporate control to the companies’ rightful owners, its stockholders.
If you have any questions concerning securities law or would like to speak to a securities attorney, please contact Christian Levis (clevis@lowey.com) or Andrea Farah (afarah@lowey.com).