Probate litigation has changed drastically in the last several decades, particularly as nonprobate transfers have become an increasingly important way of moving assets from one generation to the next. For such transfers involving wrongdoing...

In 2002, together with fifteen colleagues, Mark Feldman fled the rapidly imploding accounting firm Arthur Anderson, where he and the others worked in the firm's financial advisory unit. Feldman and his friends promptly launched a registered...

A new study suggests that the securities arbitration system is seriously flawed, because it's unfair to retail clients. It's an argument that has long been made by investor advocates, of course, and even some securities lawyers and state...

St. Louis will officially be home to the new Wachovia Securities, after Federal Antitrust regulators approved Wachovia Corp.’s acquisition of A.G. Edwards on Monday. Wachovia says the proxy detailing the ins and outs of the deal for...

Merrill Lynch was hit by yet another discrimination suit yesterday. This time the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the federal agency that enforces laws regarding workplace discrimination, is heading the complaint on behalf of former...

We recently represented two different institutional trustees and in each case the primary beneficiary of the trust was incarcerated -- guests of the state, if you will. They were later released. A recent decision out of California on quite another...

Broker-dealers got the breathing room they hoped for on Monday with regards to complying with the recent court ruling that outlaws fee-based brokerage accounts. A federal court granted an SEC-requested 120 day stay, until October 1st, for firms to...

The sub-prime lending meltdown could be spreading. It’s one thing for Bear Stearns to have to arrange a $3.2 billion bailout of one of its hedge funds, but, for the brokerage industry, the problem just hit closer to home...

Mary Schapiro unveiled yesterday the new name it has selected for the new NASD/NYSE regulatory combo: SIRA, which stands for Securities Industry Regulatory Authority, but sounds a little bit more like some ugly winged creature out of Dungeons &...

A New Jersey Appellate Court ruled in favor of Smith Barney’s deferred compensation plan on June 15, reversing a lower court’s decision that said the firm’s Capital Appreciation Plan (CAP) violated New Jersey wage laws. The...