Jeanne L. Smith

Jeanne Smith has been in the securities and financial services industry for over 30 years and has extensive experience as a corporate manager and compliance supervisor at both the Complex and Regional levels, having worked at Goldman Sachs, Salomon Brothers and, for 18 years (from 1995-2013), Merrill Lynch.

Ms. Smith’s years as both Administrative and Business Manager include supervision of financial advisors, operational and support personnel, and other managers. As such, she has background and specific experience in approving option trading suitability, insurance and annuity products, equities, mutual funds, and Muni and corporate bonds. Her responsibilities included reviewing active client accounts, option exposure reporting and naked option levels (including the approval of any increases), concentration levels, daily trading, margin and collateral calls, 10b5-1 executions, new issue share allocations, approval of errors and trade corrections, and employee outside interests.

Additionally, Ms. Smith has investigated and uncovered instances of employee and client wrongdoing, including mortgage fraud, theft of client funds, improper movement of funds between unrelated client accounts, embezzlement (clients’ theft of their firm’s publicly traded stock and subsequent deposit at the broker/dealer), conspiracy related to theft of US Treasury checks (with deposits made at the firm using false and/or forged identification), and unauthorized discretionary trading.  These situations have resulted in her working, at various times, alongside agents of the Secret Service (US Treasury), FBI, and local law enforcement agencies.

Ms. Smith founded WASL Consulting LLC in 2013 and, often through her role as an affiliate with the Bates Group, provides expert witness and consulting services related to securities arbitration and litigation. In this role, she assists clients, claimants, respondents, and counsel in formulating strategy and leveraging the facts to best present a case to the arbitration panel or mediator. She has the experience, commitment, and resources necessary to provide objective expert witness opinions related to suitability issues and standard of care in the securities industry. Additionally, her background and expertise will assist in determining case presentation strategies that will assist an arbitration panel as they seek to clarify the pertinent issues at hand.

Ms. Smith has testified in approximately twenty-five arbitrations as corporate representative. Cases requiring her testimony included failure to hedge, failure to supervise, unauthorized trading, and claims of investment unsuitability (including products such as equities, bonds, and annuities). Since creating WASL Consulting, she has been retained eleven times, on cases for both plaintiffs and defense, as well as on non-litigation consulting matters. She has also testified (and/or assisted in settling) matters related to unpaid prom notes, recruiting violations of the protocol, U-5 language disputes, and other employee-related matters. Since forming her own firm, she has been accepted as a FINRA expert, testified in three cases and submitted case summaries for mediation in two others. 

Familiar with the issues related to facilitating a positive outcome at hearing, she has a strong understanding of the discovery process, case strategies, and settlement values. Exceptional communication skills make her not only an outstanding witness at hearing, able to produce demonstrative trial exhibits, but also create tightly written expert reports, defining the issues and illustrating the weaknesses of the opposing party, thereby helping to facilitate a favorable settlement.

Over the course of her career Ms. Smith has supervised support staff personnel, financial advisors, and other managers. She has five inactive securities licenses, including a supervisor’s license, is a FINRA neutral arbitrator, an NFA arbitrator, and was a member of FINRA’s Series 7 Writing Committee for two years.