Every result described on this page is drawn from public filings, published awards, or documented outcomes. When you have already been misled about your money once, you deserve a lawyer whose claims you can check.
Get a Free Case ReviewSome firms lead with a success rate. I lead with the record. Every result described on this page is drawn from public filings, published awards, or documented outcomes, and where a public source exists, I link to it. When you have already been misled about your money once, you deserve a lawyer whose claims you can check.
Two things you will not find here. You will not find a percentage, because success rates in this field reflect which cases a firm agrees to take as much as how well it tries them. And you will not find a promise, because no honest securities arbitration attorney can make one. What you will find is a pattern. Complex financial misconduct, investigated with a prosecutor’s method and an accountant’s eye, resolved for the benefit of the investor.
For ten years I served as Senior Enforcement Counsel in the SEC’s Division of Enforcement in Miami, investigating and prosecuting securities fraud. The results from that decade are matters of public record.
SEC v. Wealth Pools International, Inc. I helped bring the Commission's action against an alleged $132 million international scheme with as many as 70,000 victims in 64 countries. As the SEC charged, the scheme preyed on the Hispanic community, selling purported language tutorial DVDs and targeting families in Orlando and Puerto Rico. For this work I was commended by name by SEC Commissioner (now SEC Chair) Paul S. Atkins.
Enforcement Division Director’s Award, for exceptional contributions to the enforcement of the federal securities laws
Award for Excellence in Information Technology, for co-authoring the Offering Fraud guidance used by SEC enforcement attorneys
Commissioner and Regional Director Certificates of Appreciation
Why this matters to your case. The skills that build an enforcement action, tracing money, reconstructing trading, proving what a firm knew and when, are the same skills that win arbitration. I did not learn them representing the industry. I learned them holding it accountable.
A word about what you will and will not see below. Most securities arbitration claims resolve by settlement, and nearly all settlements are confidential. That is not a footnote, it is the reality of this practice, and any results page that hides it is telling you less than the whole truth. Where a matter concluded in a published arbitration award, I cite it, with its case number, so you can read the award yourself. Where a matter settled, I describe what happened and how it resolved, and I honor the confidentiality my client bargained for. I would protect your settlement the same way.
Riera Law Firm served as counsel for the claimants in FINRA Case No. 22-01620. The panel issued an award on February 4, 2025. The full award is a public record, available in FINRA’s Arbitration Awards Online database. Whether any arbitration award can be collected depends on the respondent firm’s solvency and insurance; the respondent in that matter, Center Street Securities, Inc., ceased business in 2023 and withdrew its FINRA registration in 2024.
A married couple in their seventies and eighties trusted an agent who presented himself as a source of unbiased advice while collecting commissions from product sponsors on every sale. He steered their retirement savings into seven separate illiquid alternative investments, non-traded REITs, REIT preferred shares, an income fund, and private notes, with concentration in these positions running as high as nearly an entire account. The firm’s own monthly statements designated the holdings as hard-to-value assets whose market values could not even be reported, notice of exactly what had been done, printed by the respondent itself. Jorge tried the case alone, from opening statement through closing argument. The panel ruled for the investors and issued an award.
FINRA Case No. 22-01620. The award is a public record; read it in FINRA’s Arbitration Awards Online database.
An elderly investor was sold concentrated positions in non-traded REITs that were never suitable for her circumstances. Presented at hearing with co-counsel, the case established both the unsuitability of the products and the vulnerability of the client. The panel awarded damages, rescission, punitive damages, and sanctions. Punitive damages are rare in FINRA arbitration; panels reserve them for conduct they find egregious.
FINRA Case No. 18-00218. The award is a public record; read it in FINRA’s Arbitration Awards Online database. Results in matters where co-counsel appeared do not reflect the work of any single attorney.
The matter came to the firm as a complaint about a single failed investment. A forensic review of the account records showed the true scope: an agent had placed roughly forty percent of a retired delivery driver’s portfolio into illiquid alternative investments, junk bonds, a non-traded REIT, and private LLC interests, all sold to him as safe, while earning high commissions on the sales. The claim as filed alleged the full pattern, willful securities fraud under Section 10(b) and Rule 10b-5 along with FINRA’s fraud and ethics rules, and losses of roughly two-thirds of the amounts invested. The matter resolved by confidential settlement at mediation.
A recently widowed retired physician entrusted her husband’s life insurance proceeds to a registered investment adviser to build the conservative, diversified portfolio she was promised. Instead, the adviser placed nearly a third of it into a single speculative junk bond issue, sold to her as safe income from an issuer that had never missed a payment, while collecting ongoing advisory fees simply for holding the position. The issuer collapsed and she lost the entire investment. The claim pled breach of fiduciary duty under the Investment Advisers Act along with state securities and consumer protection statutes. When the adviser claimed it lacked the resources to pay and its insurer denied coverage, a forensic review of the firm’s own financial disclosures told a different story, and identified where the money had actually gone. The matter resolved by confidential settlement.
Most firms read the client’s account statements. Reading the respondent’s balance sheet is how you collect.
The client came to this country as a young man and spent more than thirty years in the skilled trades, working extra jobs before and after his shifts to build a retirement account, in a country whose language he read imperfectly. An agent who presented himself as a source of unbiased advice put essentially all of it, one hundred percent of the portfolio, into three speculative non-traded REITs, products whose own prospectuses said they were suitable only for investors who could afford to lose everything. To make the sales fit, the agent had the client sign blank account forms, then completed them with an inflated net worth and an “aggressive” risk tolerance the client never had. When the claim was filed, the firm moved to dismiss it as ineligible under FINRA Rule 12206, arguing the six-year clock had run. After full briefing and a hearing, the panel denied the motion. The matter resolved by confidential settlement weeks later.
A signature on a blank form is not consent, and a limitations defense is not a defense to what the forms concealed.
As you compare firms, you will see large aggregate figures. Hundreds of millions recovered, thousands of arbitrations filed, success rates near one hundred percent. Here is what two decades inside this system taught me about reading those claims. Aggregate figures reflect decades of operation, the headcount of the firm, and above all case selection; a firm that accepts only sure winners will always report a remarkable rate. None of those numbers answers the questions that actually predict how your case will go. Who, personally, will work your case and stand up at your hearing? Has that person won cases with facts like yours? And has any panel ever found their client’s cause compelling enough to award punitive damages? Ask every firm you interview those three questions. I welcome them.
At Riera Law Firm, the attorney whose name appears on these awards is the one who answers your call, reads your statements, and argues your case. I take fewer matters than the volume firms, by design, so that every case gets the preparation an SEC enforcement action would get. One client at a time.
Some outcomes are measured in rules rather than dollars. I serve as one of only 7 Public Members of FINRA’s National Arbitration and Mediation Committee, appointed by the FINRA Board of Governors, and as Chair of its Expungement Subcommittee, the body that governs whether broker misconduct can be removed from the public record. I chair the Expungement Subcommittee of PIABA, served on the Chapter 517 Task Force of The Florida Bar’s Business Law Section that proposed amendments to Florida’s Securities and Investor Protection Act, and teach securities arbitration as PLI faculty. When the rules of the forum change, investors deserve a voice at that table. I am that voice.
I take fewer cases than the volume firms, by design. Every matter at Riera Law Firm is investigated by me, prepared by me, and argued by me. Before I accept a case, I read the account statements the way I read them at the SEC and at HSBC, looking for the concentration, the activity pattern, the supervisory failure that turns a loss into a claim. If I take your case, it is because the analysis supports it. If I decline, I will tell you why.
The consultation is free, confidential, and in English or Spanish. Contingency fee only. No recovery, no fee.
Find Out If Your Losses Are RecoverableAttorney Advertising. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Each case depends on its own facts and circumstances. The choice of a lawyer is an important decision and should not be based solely upon advertisements. Results obtained in matters in which co-counsel appeared do not reflect the work of any single attorney. No award or settlement amounts are stated on this page; award amounts appear in the published arbitration awards themselves, which are cited and linked above. Representation is on a contingency fee basis; if there is no recovery, no attorney’s fee is owed. The firm advances all costs; clients are not obligated to reimburse costs unless there is a recovery, and then only up to the amount of that recovery. The SEC enforcement matters described were brought by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission during Jorge L. Riera’s tenure as Senior Enforcement Counsel and were not private client representations. Jorge L. Riera is licensed to practice law in Florida; securities arbitration is a nationwide practice before FINRA, AAA, and JAMS.