ABOUT RJ&L
When Ira C. Rothgerber Sr. and Walter Appel established their small legal practice in downtown Denver in 1903, even they could not have imagined what they were starting. Never would they have dreamt that their friendly, informal partnership would grow to an approximate 75-attorney firm with three branch offices and a 100-year legacy of integrity, leadership, public service and innovation.
In 1903, Denver was a bustling, rapidly growing frontier city of 170,000 people. For more than 50 years, these dedicated, skilled attorneys worked together and built their law practice based on client service and a deep regard for the legal profession. By the mid-1900s, the population had climbed to more than 500,000, the metropolitan area had grown by more than 50 square miles and numerous suburban cities had been established.
Today, the Denver-area population has reached more than 2.5 million, and the city has become the business center of the Rocky Mountain West. The law firm of Rothgerber Johnson & Lyons LLP has grown and evolved with the region and has emerged among the ten largest legal partnerships in Colorado—and one of its most respected. To read more about our firm’s history, please click here.
From its roots in bankruptcy and collections, Rothgerber Johnson & Lyons LLP now has a diverse commercial practice covering most areas of civil law. The firm is uniquely qualified to provide the highest-quality, professional legal services to a growing roster of corporate clients across the Rocky Mountain region. For a complete list of our practice areas, please click here. For a list of some of the industries we serve, please click here.
The attorneys in our law firm have earned the respect of their peers. Many of our attorneys have been selected as “Super Lawyers” and “Best Lawyers,” and have been honored with awards for achievement in law, business and the community. For a complete list of our news announcements, please click here.
ABOUT RJ&L’S SECURITY AND REGULATION PRACTICE AREA
Rothgerber Johnson & Lyons Securities Regulation, Litigation and Arbitration attorneys bring together many of the firm’s practice areas, including complex litigation and class action defense, arbitration, regulatory defense, regulation and compliance. These practice areas, combined with our experience with the unique issues, laws and regulations impacting participants in the securities and financial services industries, result in our representation of a wide variety of clients, including major wirehouse firms, independent contractor firms, state and federal registered investment advisers, investment bankers, hedge funds, private equity funds, mutual funds, financial planners, money managers, and individual representatives, both effectively and efficiently.
Our attorneys have represented securities clients in matters regarding customer claims brought in arbitration and litigation involving suitability, excessive trading, fraud, violations of state and federal securities laws, and consumer protection statutes. These matters have involved a wide variety of product types including stocks, government, corporate and municipal bonds, open- and closed-end mutual funds, limited partnership and limited liability company interests, exotic securities, variable and fixed annuities, and other insurance products.
Our attorneys also represent securities clients in arbitration and litigation matters involving disputes with and between broker-dealers. These matters include employment, raiding, and recruiting issues, as well as contractual issues, acquisitions, selling agreements, and non-compete and non-solicitation agreements. The firm also represents individuals and corporations in class actions asserting claims under the federal securities laws and ERISA.
ABOUT PHIL FEIGIN
Phil Feigin is a senior partner at Lewis Roca Rothgerber LLP, practicing in the firm’s Denver, Colorado and Tucson, Arizona offices. His practice is focused on securities law, regulation, compliance, and defense of issuers and securities industry professionals in investigations and enforcement actions. He represents investment advisers, private hedge funds, real estate syndicators, broker-dealers and other issuers as well as investors in dealing with securities-related matters. He also counsels U.S. and non-U.S. precious metals dealers on federal and state compliance issues.
Mr. Feigin is a highly experienced expert witness. While at the Colorado Securities Division from 1982-1998, he served as an expert for prosecutors in Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada in dozens of criminal cases brought under state securities and commodities law. Since entering private practice, he has served as an expert in dozens of criminal, civil and arbitration cases, dealing with a wide variety of issues involving state and federal securities and commodities law and regulation. Included among the matters on which he has consulted and testified are:
- all aspects of federal and state law securities fraud, commodities-related fraud and investment frauds and schemes in general;
- the identification of securities (particularly “investment contracts” and “notes”);
- the materiality of facts;
- broker-dealer and investment adviser regulation, responsibilities and abuses;
- a securities lawyer’s standard of care and fiduciary duty;
- securities markets in general;
- customer and client suitability;
- day trading;
- insider trading;
- the unenforceability of unregistered broker agreements; and
- private placement offerings, federal Regulation D and other federal and state securities registration exemptions generally.
He has consulted with and testified on behalf of state securities administrators, state attorneys general, the Securities and Exchange Commission, U.S. Attorneys, counsel for brokerage firms, investment advisers and agents, plaintiff’s and claimant’s counsel, prosecutors,and civil and criminal defense counsel. He has appeared in administrative, civil and criminal cases, in arbitrations and in mediations. He has been retained for cases in many jurisdictions, including Alabama, Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Nevada, New Jersey, North Carolina, Oklahoma and Washington State. He has consulted as an expert on many more cases than those that proceeded as far as providing testimony (matters resolved before they got that far), but, since entering private practice, he has provided testimony, declarations and affidavits in criminal trials, private civil and regulatory enforcement court proceedings and trials, administrative enforcement proceedings, before FINRA (NASD) arbitrations and in mediations.
In his regulatory and private practice career, he has also testified before numerous committees and subcommittees of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, as well as the legislatures of Colorado, Nevada, Washington State and Massachusetts on investor protection and regulatory issues.
Prior to joining what is now Lewis Roca Rothgerber, Mr. Feigin served in Washington, D.C. as Executive Director of NASAA from 1998 to 1999. NASAA, the voice of the 67 state and provincial securities agencies of the 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the provinces and territories of Canada, and the Republic of Mexico, is the oldest international organization devoted to investor protection. During his 14 months as NASAA’s Executive Director, Mr. Feigin participated in the association’s successful efforts to preserve state functional regulation of bank securities activities in the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act. He was also a central figure in drawing national attention to abuses and concerns relating to day trading, on-line brokerage activities, overly aggressive advertising by brokerage firms and Internet-based investment fraud.
Prior to becoming NASAA’s Executive Director, Mr. Feigin served as Colorado’s Securities Commissioner for 10 years, where he championed the reshaping of Colorado securities and investment regulation. Mr. Feigin spearheaded the drafting and enactment of the Colorado Securities Act (1990), the Colorado Commodity Code, the Colorado Municipal Bond Supervision Act, Colorado local government investment pool trust fund regulation, and provisions under which Colorado’s investment advisers and investment adviser representatives are regulated. He was also actively involved in the drafting of the Uniform Securities Act (2002).
While Commissioner in Colorado, Mr. Feigin served as NASAA’s President in 1994-1995, and otherwise as a member of the NASAA Board of Directors for seven years. He testified on behalf of NASAA on numerous occasions before committees of both the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate as well as various committees of the Colorado General Assembly and other state legislatures on securities, banking, commodities regulation and investor protection issues. He chaired the multi-state “Lloyd’s of London” task force leading to a settlement of more than $60 million for American investors. He also served on NASAA’s Task
Force on the Future of Shared State and Federal Securities Regulation. He was appointed a member of two advisory committees to the federal Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Until assuming his duties in Washington in 1998, he also served as a founding trustee on the Board of the Investor Protection Trust. Mr. Feigin was a principal authority in the creation and adoption of the Model State Commodity Code designed to prohibit off-exchange commodities fraud. In October 1995, Mr. Feigin was awarded NASAA’s highest award, the “Blue Sky Cube,” in recognition of his successful presidency, years of service and work in the cause of investor protection.
Before being named Colorado Securities Commissioner in 1988, Mr. Feigin served as the Assistant Colorado Securities Commissioner from 1982 to 1988, and before that, as the Chief Attorney of the Enforcement Division of the Office of the Wisconsin Commissioner of Securities. He began his legal career in Madison, Wisconsin in private practice from 1977 to 1979. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree in American History from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1971 and a Juris Doctor degree from Pepperdine University School of Law in 1977.
He is admitted to practice in California, Wisconsin, Colorado and Arizona (inactive in California and Wisconsin).
Mr. Feigin has been quoted and cited as an expert in securities and commodities law and investor and consumer protection issues for more than 30 years in both national and local television, radio and print media. He has appeared frequently as a speaker, panelist and lecturer. He has also served as an adjunct professor teaching real estate securities, syndication and entrepreneurship at the Burns School of Real Estate Management and Construction, Daniels College of Business, University of Denver. He currently serves as a Part-time Professor of the Practice (adjunct professor) of securities law at the James E. Rogers College of Law, University of Arizona in Tucson, and is a contributing author to the West treatise, Blue Sky Law. He recently co-authored Real Estate Securities with Prof. Mark Levine.
In May, 2012, Mr. Feigin began a blog, “Wall Street Main Street Law,” found at www.wallstreetmainstreetlaw.com. In introducing the blog, he said, “I have never hesitated to let my opinions be known. I have perspectives that are hard to come by, and not often reflected in the media. In my 20 years in government, I dealt with issues of profound national, even international impact, on regulation, industry and thousands of investors. In private practice, I have worked with people one by one. I have seen things from “both sides now.” I cringe at things I see regulators doing. I bristle at private sector excesses and overreaching. Through this blog, I hope to use these two perspectives to put a unique edge on some issues as I see them, and shed some singular light on that neighborhood where Wall Street and Main Street intersect.”
Mr. Feigin is a member of the American Bar Association’s State and Federal Regulation of Securities Committees (Chair, Uniform Securities Act Subcommittee; Member, Investment Company and Investment Adviser and Hedge Fund Subcommittees). Mr. Feigin has authored numerous articles, including “The Model State Commodity Code in 2012 and New CFTC Jurisdiction—Whither the States? Can “new dogs” learn “old tricks?” Banking & Financial Services Policy Report (Feb. 2012 edition); “The Model State Commodity Code in 2011, Whither the States? Can “new dogs” learn “old tricks?” and “Dodd-Frank, Suitability and Fiduciary Duty,” and “The Uniform Securities Act of 2002,”© for the Blue Sky Bugle (American Bar Association Committee on State Regulation of Securities, Section of Business Law); and for RJ&L publications—co-authored two Colorado Adviser Advisories with Nina G. Ward; “Do We Really Have to Do This? Some Observations on Dealing with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act,” and “Truth or Consequences: The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002”.
Wall Street Main Street Law 