Our client‘s father worked a lifetime and left him more than $1,000,000 when he passed. (Our client’s mother had passed a few years before, and there were no other children.). Our client decided that it was time for him to make millions more in the stock market, and found a broker to help him, even though our client planned to pick most of the stocks. Other than the inheritance, the client had not made investments.

The $1,000,000 account took 11 months to go to zero. Due to the dangers of margin investments (borrowing money from the brokerage house, secured by other investments) and churning (overtrading of the account, where the commissions and fees reduce the account to zero.

We were brought in late in the case. Through aggressive discovery and investigation, we were able to show that the broker had exerted control over the account (at times) and had permitted the customer’s wild speculative trading to take place without any concern from the broker or brokerage firm. Although a difficult case, we were able to recover the customer’s inheritance, to provide the peace of mind that his father had once given him.