Madia Law Recovers for Investors
The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) handles most claims by investors against brokers and firms through mandatory FINRA arbitration.  The advantage of arbitration is that you will get a final result on your case much faster than through normal civil litigation, and there will be very limited appeals.  The disadvantage of FINRA arbitration is that you will not have the opportunity to have your case decided by a jury – rather, a panel of arbitrators will hear the case and make the final decision.

After you retain Madia Law, we’ll file a Statement of Claim with FINRA that explains the facts and seeks relief. We’ll then rank a list of potential arbitrators provided by FINRA – the other side will do the same.  After the panel is selected, we’ll set a discovery and hearing schedule.  Both sides provide each other with certain documents necessary for the case.  There may be some motions practice, followed by the hearing on your case in front of the arbitration panel.

The arbitration hearing is the “trial” – and the same skills that make us exceptional trial lawyers transfer over to these hearings.  We prepare for the hearing from Day 1, and our closing argument drives our Statement of Claim and discovery process.  We take great pride in our ability to push matters all the way through final hearing if brokers and firms are unwilling to do right by their clients.

Sometimes, however, brokers will settle after they’re convinced that we’re going to beat them at arbitration.  For example, we recovered nearly $100,000 for an investor whose broker over-concentrated his portfolio in gold at a settlement conference just one month before the final arbitration hearing.

Representative Case
We represented “Tom” – a 68 year old retired salesman from Chicago.  When he retired, he placed his trust – and all of his retirement savings – with a broker for capital preservation and growth.
The broker inexplicably pursued an investment strategy that failed to diversify Tom’s investments.  Instead, he concentrated the vast majority of Tom’s portfolio into one asset class: gold.  While precious metals may arguable have constituted a small piece of a well-diversified portfolio for a couple in retirement, the concentration of well over half of Tom’s assets in gold was totally unsuitable for his circumstances.
Predictably, the over-concentration in precious metals led to disastrous results.  When the gold market collapsed, Tom’s portfolio lost a tremendous amount of value.
We took Tom’s case and litigated in arbitration against a large, national brokerage firm.  Just weeks before the arbitration hearing, the firm settled for over $100,000.

Madia Law Bills on Success
We thrive on flexible fee agreements tied to our success.  We’ll work with you to craft a fee agreement that ties success to fees, including contingency fee agreements.