For students interested in business law, the Investor Rights Clinic provides practical training while helping the underserved. Recently, Investor Rights Clinic fellows Emily Brafman, Emily Gross, Emily Lopez, and John Rincon traveled to Washington, D.C., to meet in person with regulators at the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority and the Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards to discuss policymaking and investor protection.
The second and third-year law students were joined by students at the St. John's University School of Law Securities Arbitration Clinic and the Pace Law School Investor Rights Clinic. They had the opportunity to discuss current regulatory and legal issues important to the investing public.
"Learning from the CFP Board and FINRA has been eye-opening, especially seeing how FINRA's rule-making process directly impacts the cases our clinic works on," said Lopez. "It's given me a whole new appreciation for how regulations shape the financial world in real time."
FINRA is a nonprofit organization that regulates broker-dealers and brokerage firms in the United States. FINRA's mission is to protect investors and ensure the integrity of the securities markets. The CFP Board is a nonprofit organization that sets, upholds, and enforces standards for Certified Financial Planners.
"Our students enjoyed discussing important issues with securities regulators and learned about current initiatives to protect seniors and the investing public," said the clinic's associate director, Melanie Cherdack, who accompanied the students. "We also discussed recent third-party scams affecting individual investors, which is something we have been seeing quite a bit at the clinic."
The Investor Rights Clinic, one of nine offered at the School of Law, is staffed by second and third-year law students representing under-served investors in securities arbitration claims against their brokers before FINRA. The clinic provides a pro bono resource to individuals of modest means who have suffered investment losses as a result of broker misconduct but, due to the size of their claim, cannot find legal representation. The clinic also engages in regulatory and legislative advocacy for the investing public.
Read more about Miami Law's clinics.
