There Is No Substitute For Experienced Legal Defense

You cannot put a price tag on Kaufmann Gildin & Robbins’ decades of experience in securities arbitration, litigation and regulatory investigations and prosecutions.

• As former securities law prosecutors, we understand the workings of state and federal agencies that investigate and bring securities fraud cases, both criminally and civilly.
• As former regulators of the securities industry at a major stock exchange, we have intimate familiarity with the world of “self-regulation.”
• As arbitrators we have a unique perspective on investor and industry cases brought in arbitration.
• As mediators in the securities industry and in other commercial disputes, we are able to quickly uncover the strengths and weaknesses of your adversary’s case and your own.
• As counsel to investors, we have an appreciation of their relationships with brokers and firms.
• As counsel to brokers, we can determine how best to defend them in investor, industry and regulatory matters.
• As counsel to brokerage firms, we can evaluate your compliance and supervisory system to reduce the chances of broker misconduct and, if wrongdoing has already taken place, recommend procedures to prevent its recurrence (in addition to representing you in disputes with investors, employees and regulators.

From the first signs of a customer complaint until its resolution – through settlement or contested hearings – our lawyers at Kaufmann Gildin & Robbins have decades of experience in “damage control” and effective defense.”

Upon receipt by the firm of a customer complaint, we assess its merits and recommend a course of conduct that can prevent an arbitration claim from thereafter being filed, thereby maintaining the otherwise unblemished records of your brokers and your firm.

If a claim is filed, we will work with your brokers and your supervisory personnel to devise a “trial strategy” – from the contents of an effective Answer, through comprehensive discovery requests, witness preparation and presentation at the hearings. Where necessary, we will recommend and work with expert witnesses to provide support to our defense.

If it appears that your firm has exposure in a case, we can recommend alternatives to a full-flown arbitration hearing, thereby controlling the outcome, rather than leaving it in the hands of an arbitration panel. Mediation has become the cost-effective alternative to securities arbitration. It controls the risks that arbitrators “can get it wrong.” Our partner in charge of the securities dispute group, David E. Robbins, is a noted mediator, often being retained by large brokerage firms to settle customer and industry disputes. His settlement rate as a mediator for all securities arbitrations exceeds 90%.

Even if it appears that FINRA Regulation has a strong case against you or one of your brokers for supervisory issues, we can either negotiate a reasonable settlement or represent you in contested hearings, where our success rate is quite impressive.

While our senior partner in the securities dispute group, David E. Robbins, has written and edited most of the books in securities arbitration law, we know that it is an understanding of the unwritten practices and procedures that will often determine the outcome of a dispute with a customer. Retaining Kaufmann Gildin & Robbins enables you to take advantage of that hard earned knowledge. See also our Securities website.

The New York Law Journal has stated that the two-volume treatise Securities Arbitration Procedure Manual, written by our partner in charge of securities arbitration and brokerage defense cases, David E. Robbins, is considered “the Bible” in this area of the law. All securities arbitration cases, self-regulatory matters and SEC proceedings at Kaufmann Gildin & Robbins are personally overseen by Mr. Robbins.