This episode of the inSecurities podcast features a roundtable with pro bono experts who discuss the need for law school clinics that represent retail investors in FINRA arbitrations.
Nicole Iannarone, Associate Professor of Law at Drexel University Thomas R. Kline School of Law, and Christine Lazaro, Professor of Clinical Legal Education and Director of the Securities Arbitration Clinic at St. John’s University School of Law, join the podcast, along with Alicia Aiken, Director of the Danu Center’s Confidentiality Institute and host of PLI’s podcast Pursuing Justice: The Pro Bono Files, who steps in as a special guest co-host.
Keep an eye out for a forthcoming episode of Pursuing Justice that will feature interviews with past clinic participants.
Featured in this Episode
Nicole Iannarone
Nicole Iannarone teaches courses including Business Organizations, Civil Procedure, Complex Litigation, Business Arbitration, and Professional Responsibility. Her scholarship focuses on consumer disputes with professional services providers, exploring the intersection between professional regulation, dispute resolution systems, transparency, and technology. She examines average consumers’ experiences in dispute resolution to identify barriers they face in entrenched mandatory arbitration forums and recommends interventions to increase consumers’ access to justice.
Professor Iannarone’s scholarship has appeared in or is forthcoming in the Washington Law Review, Cardozo Law Review, Stetson Law Review, Tennessee Journal of Business Law, Chicago Kent Law Review, and the University of Toledo Law Review. She frequently is asked to share her expertise with regulatory and policy making bodies and has been invited to testify before the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission and International Association of Securities Commissioners (IOSCO) on issues relating to consumer investor protection.
Professor Iannarone is involved in national-level engagement in communities related to her scholarly focus. She was appointed Chair of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) National Arbitration and Mediation Committee (NAMC), the advisory group responsible for studying the FINRA mandatory securities dispute resolution forum and recommending changes to FINRA’s board of governors, in 2021. She also serves as a public member of the Certified Financial Planner (CFP) Board of Standards Public Policy Council.
Before joining the faculty in 2019, Professor Iannarone founded the Investor Advocacy Clinic at Georgia State University College of Law where she oversaw students’ representation of consumer investors with small claims in FINRA arbitration. Previously, Professor Iannarone taught at Mercer Law School and at Vanderbilt Law School.
Before entering academia, Professor Iannarone was an equity partner and deputy general counsel in a litigation boutique firm where she represented plaintiffs and defendants in litigation at all levels of state and federal trial and appellate courts. Beginning with her time in law practice and throughout her academic career, Professor Iannarone has been heavily involved in service to the practicing bar, including by serving as President of the Atlanta Bar Association, President of the Atlanta Council of Younger Lawyers, Chair of the State Bar of Georgia’s Professionalism Committee, Chair of the Atlanta Bar Association Reputation and Public Trust Committee and liaison to the Georgia Chief Justice’s Commission on Professionalism. She is also a former chair of the AALS Section on Employee Benefits and Executive Compensation and a fellow of the American Bar Foundation.
Professor Iannarone received her JD from Yale Law School, where she served on the Yale Journal on Regulation, and graduated summa cum laude and with high honors in liberal studies from Brenau Women’s College.
Christine Lazaro
Christine Lazaro is Director of the Law School's Securities Arbitration Clinic. She came to St. John's in 2007 as the Clinic's Supervising Attorney. She is faculty advisor for the Moot Court Honor Society and the Corporate and Securities Law Society. Professor Lazaro holds a B.A. from New York University and a J.D. from Fordham Law School.
After graduating from law school and prior to joining the Securities Arbitration Clinic, Professor Lazaro was an associate at the boutique law firm of Davidson & Grannum, LLP. At the firm, she represented broker-dealers and individual brokers in disputes with clients in both arbitration and mediation. She also handled employment law cases and debt collection cases. Professor Lazaro was the primary attorney in the area of the firm’s practice that dealt with advising broker-dealers regarding investment contracts they had with various municipalities and government entities. Professor Lazaro is also of Counsel to the Law Offices of Brent A. Burns, LLC, where she consults on securities arbitration and regulatory matters.
She is admitted to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, the United States District Courts for the Southern District of New York, the Eastern District of New York, and the District of New Jersey and the New York and New Jersey State Bars. Professor Lazaro is a member of the New York State and the American Bar Associations, and the Public Investors Advocate Bar Association (PIABA). Professor Lazaro is a past President of PIABA and was a member of its Board of Directors. She is currently a member of the Legislation, Securities Law Seminar, and SRO Committees. Professor Lazaro is also the co-chair of the Securities Disputes Committee in the Dispute Resolution Section of the New York State Bar Association. Professor Lazaro serves on the SEC’s Investor Advisory Committee and the FINRA Investor Issues Advisory Committee. She also serves on the CFP Board’s Standards Resource Commission. Professor Lazaro is also a member of the Editorial Advisory Board of the Securities Arbitration Alert, and occasionally contributes to its newsletter.
Special Co-Host
Alicia Aiken has dedicated 25 years to working within the public and non-profit sectors to further social justice for people living in poverty and surviving violence. Alicia brings a deep understanding of the legal and social services non-profit sector, having spent 15 years as a practicing attorney and then a member of the Executive Committee at Legal Aid Chicago, the 150-person legal services program in Chicago.
Alicia is a Principal at the Danu Center for Strategic Advocacy and the Director of the Danu Center’s Confidentiality Institute, a national policy and technical assistance project that supports helping professionals to protect privacy for crime victims. In 2016, Alicia became the Faculty Fellow for Practising Law Institute’s Interactive Learning Center where she designs innovative programs that teach lawyers to work well with individual clients. Alicia regularly strategizes with direct service non-profits, local coalitions, government entities, law firms, and professional organizations on a wide range of issues, including service delivery models, organizational structure, internal procedures, legal compliance, litigation strategy, policy advocacy, professional development, and distance learning design.
Alicia attended the University of Michigan, where she received a Law degree (’95) and a Bachelor of Arts in English/History (’92). In 2006-2007, Alicia was awarded the Chicago Foundation for Women Founder’s Award, enabling her to study organizational change at Northwestern University, and to undertake a national study of model domestic violence courts. Most recently, she received the American Bar Association’s 2018 Sharon L. Corbitt Award for Exemplary Legal Service to Victims of Domestic Violence, Sexual Assault and Stalking.
Pursuing Justice: The Pro Bono Files provides a behind-the-scenes exploration of pro bono and public interest legal work. These heartening stories are told from both clients’ and lawyers’ perspectives to showcase intimate portraits of lawyers helping those with limited access to justice.
Listen to Pursuing Justice: The Pro Bono Files
