Partner Timothy Cornell cut his teeth on securities law advising start-ups and private equity investors at Foley Hoag LLP. He later joined Boies, Schiller & Flexner, L.P., where he litigated blockbuster class action lawsuits on behalf of shareholders and defendants. He served in the Chief Counsel’s Office of the Division of Trading and Markets at the United States Securities and Exchange Commission in Washington, D.C., where he helped craft regulation on derivatives during the financial meltdown in 2007.

After winning a significant verdict at trial, Patrick Dolan has gone to the Massachusetts Supreme Court on a landmark case that helped define an investment advisor’s fiduciary duty toward his client. He has represented broker dealers and investors alike in FINRA arbitration and mediations, complex securities litigation in federal court, and defended a global payments company in securities litigation brought by the SEC.

The lawyers at Cornell Dolan, P.C. have litigated a range of securities law violations, including:

• Breach of fiduciary duty. Brokerage firms who handle investments on behalf of clients have a duty to make reasonable judgments in the best interests of the client when handling the client’s money. Failure to exercise professional discretion or mishandling client funds in a negligent manner could constitute breach of fiduciary duty.
• Conflict of interest. Brokers have a professional duty to avoid potential conflicts of interest, such as using client investments to manipulate a market or exploit investments for personal gain.
• Brokers collect fees on every trade they perform on behalf of their clients. When a broker engages in excessive trading at no benefit to a client to inflate fees, this is known as churning.
• Insider trading. It is against securities law to trade stocks while in possession of insider information not yet available to the public. For example, if a broker owns stock in a company and learns the company will close in a month, but that information has not yet been released to the public, it would qualify as insider trading to offload the stock in advance of a public press release about the situation.
• Omission of facts. Brokers make money when investors pay them for their services. In most cases, they make money regardless of whether the investors’ initial investments prove fruitful. When brokers misrepresent investments and effectively dupe investors into investing poorly for personal gain, this is a major securities law violation.

They have represented clients in Massachusetts actions that have included:

• The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
• The United States Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).
• The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA).
• The Securities Division of the Massachusetts Secretary of State.
• The Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office.

The top-rated securities attorneys at Cornell Dolan, P.C. have an extensive track record of successful securities cases, including high-profile cases worth millions of dollars. Our firm understands how the securities regulatory system works and how to identify securities issues.

Contact Cornell Dolan, P.C. today for more information about how the attorneys at our Boston law firm can help with your legal case, or if you want to schedule a consultation with experienced legal counsel about your securities dispute in Boston.