GOODMAN & NEKVASIL, P.A., represents public investors on a contingency fee basis in individual and group arbitrations, lawsuits, and class actions against brokerage firms and their stockbrokers. Goodman & Nekvasil has a nationwide practice against brokerage firms for recommending and selling fraudulent, unregistered, or unsuitable investments, both when the brokerage firm knew and approved its broker’s actions and when it did not approve these actions. Since 1992, the firm has recovered more than $150 million on behalf of public investors.
During more than 16 years, Goodman & Nekvasil has represented thousands of investors throughout the United States in securities arbitrations or court cases against Prudential, PaineWebber, Merrill Lynch, Dean Witter, Shearson, Smith Barney, Raymond James, ING Financial and its affiliates, and other national and regional brokerage firms. Goodman & Nekvasil has appeared in dozens of different state and federal trial courts and appellate courts, and the firm prevailed when it represented two investors before the United States Supreme Court. The firm has represented investors with many different kinds of investment losses, including losses from fraudulent Ponzi schemes, mutual funds, limited partnerships, annuities, and excessive trading.
The firm’s support staff includes a securities trading analyst, an accountant, and a paralegal litigation assistant, and the firm accesses a wide array of nationally recognized expert witnesses.
Joel A. Goodman is admitted to the state bars of Florida, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, and several federal district court bars, as well as the federal bars in the Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Eighth, Ninth, Tenth, and Eleventh Circuit Courts of Appeal. He has more than 35 years of legal experience and has represented more than 3,000 persons in court cases. He has arbitrated securities disputes nationwide before arbitration panels of the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD), the Commodities Futures Trade Commission, the New York Stock Exchange, and the American Arbitration Association.
Mr. Goodman served for several years as an elected member of the Board of Directors of the Public Investors Arbitration Bar Association (PIABA) – a nationally recognized bar association of several hundred securities lawyers throughout the country who represent investors. He has been chairperson of a committee for writing briefs for PIABA. He has successfully handled numerous significant court decisions relating to securities arbitrations around the country, including: Multi-Financial Securities Corp. v. King, 386 F.3d 1364 (11th Cir. 2004); California Fina Group, Inc. v. Herrin, 379 F.3d 311 (5th Cir. 2004); Washington Square Securities, Inc. v. Aune, 385 F.3d 432 (4th Cir. 2004); O.N. Equity Sales Co. v. Pals, 509 F. Supp. 2d 761 (N.D. Iowa 2007); National Planning v. Achatz, 2002 WL 31906336 (W.D.N.Y. 2002); Daugherty v. Washington Square Securities, Inc., 271 F. Supp. 2d 681 (W.D. Pa. 2003); and Jefferson Pilot Securities Corp. v. Blankenship, 257 F. Supp. 2d 962 (N.D. Ohio 2003)
Mr. Goodman has served as an arbitrator for the American Arbitration Association, and he has been designated as a qualified panel arbitrator for the NASD. He has secured numerous arbitration awards, and many of these awards have been highly publicized, including a recovery in excess of $729,000 for 14 senior citizen investors in the Buffalo area; and a large arbitration award in favor of 52 Ohio residents when a broker was ordered to pay a total of $5.18 million, including $3.14 million in compensatory damages, $500,000 in sanctions, and $1.57 million in punitive damages.
Kalju Nekvasil is admitted to the state bars in Florida and Louisiana and is licensed by several federal appellate and district courts. A graduate of Duke University Law School at age 21, Mr. Nekvasil has more than 26 years of legal experience, including 7 years as Regional General Counsel for the NASD in New Orleans. Mr. Nekvasil went 10 years without losing an NASD arbitration hearing and has frequently obtained punitive damages and attorney fee awards from arbitration panels. Mr. Nekvasil argued and prevailed in the seminal arbitrability case of John Hancock Life Insurance Co. v. Wilson, 254 F.3d 48 (2d Cir. 2001), in which the Second Circuit held that customers of brokers who sold securities without the express approval of their brokerage firms have a right to arbitrate against these brokerage firms.
Before entering private practice, Mr. Nekvasil initiated approximately four hundred 400 administrative actions against brokerage firms, resulting in millions of dollars in fines and expulsions or other disciplinary actions against numerous firms and hundreds of brokers. Many of his cases, including cases involving options, government securities, limited partnerships, and municipal bonds, have been reported in national publications such as The Wall Street Journal and The Bond Buyer. Mr. Nekvasil settled one of the largest municipal securities disclosure cases (Buchanan & Co., Inc.) ever brought by a regulatory or self-regulatory agency. Mr. Nekvasil has lectured at white collar crime law enforcement seminars, examiner training sessions, arbitrator training sessions, and securities industry conferences.
Stephen Krosschell has more than 20 years of legal experience and is a graduate of The University of Michigan Law School.
Mr. Krosschell was co-counsel at oral argument on behalf of investors before the Supreme Court of the United States in Howsam v. Dean Witter, Reynolds, Inc., 537 U.S. 79 (2002), and was also lead counsel in the Supreme Court for the investors in Harvey v. Solomon, Smith, Barney, Inc., 537 U.S. 1085 (2002). Both Howsam and Harvey involved securities arbitrations, and the United States Supreme Court in both cases awarded relief to investors. Mr. Krosschell has worked on numerous appeals relating to securities arbitrations around the country, including Mony Securities Corp. v. Bornstein, 390 F.3d 1340 (11th Cir. 2004); Washington Square Sec., Inc. v. Aune, 385 F.3d 432 (4th Cir. 2004); California Fina Group, Inc. v. Herrin, 379 F.3d 311 (5th Cir. 2004); McCullagh v. Dean Witter, Reynolds, Inc.,177 F.3d 1307 (11th Cir. 1999); Financial Network Investment Corporation v. Becker, 305 A.D.2d 187, 762 N.Y.2d 25 (2003).
Mr. Krosschell has served as Vice-Chair of the Florida Bar Appellate Rules Committee, a panel which reviews and rewrites the rules governing the handling of appeals in the Florida court system. For several years, he was also a member of the Florida Bar Rules of Judicial Administration Committee. He has more than 20 published decisions issued by the Florida Supreme Court. He is a Certified Public Accountant and has a master’s degree in accounting from the University of South Florida.
