Joe leads the firm’s Securities Litigation & SEC Enforcement Practice. He is a former enforcement attorney with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and has over 25 years of experience in private practice and government service. Joe defends clients in white-collar government and enforcement investigations by the SEC, U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), and state securities regulators. He also litigates securities fraud cases and business disputes in state and federal court, and defends broker-dealer firms in FINRA customer arbitrations. Joe’s clients include middle-market public companies, their officers and directors, investment banks, broker-dealers, investment advisers, and securities industry professionals.
Joe’s practice also includes conducting internal investigations for public company boards, audit committees, and special committees. He has recently led several internal investigations involving NASDAQ public company disclosure issues, financial accounting and restatement issues, and internal controls deficiencies.
Prior to joining the firm, Joe spent nine years with the SEC’s division of enforcement (2003-2012) where he held several leadership positions with the agency, including senior counsel, branch chief, and assistant regional director in the SEC’s New York Regional Office. As a supervising attorney, Joe oversaw dozens of investigations into a wide range of illegal market conduct, including public company accounting fraud, insider trading, market manipulation, penny stock and “pump and dump” fraud, Ponzi schemes, and violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA). He supervised a number of high-profile SEC investigations in coordination with other law enforcement agencies in the New York City area, including the U.S. Attorney’s Offices for the SDNY, EDNY and DNJ, the FBI, the CFTC, the NYAG’s Office, and the Manhattan DA’s Office.
Joe earned his undergraduate degree from Georgetown University in 1990 and his law degree from Temple University Beasley School of Law, cum laude, in 1995, where he was an articles editor on the Temple Law Review. Following law school, Joe served a two-year federal clerkship with the Hon. Raymond J. Broderick, Senior Judge, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
Joe has passed the FINRA Series 7 General Securities Exam and is a contributing author for PLI’s SEC Compliance and Enforcement Answer Book.