Michael, there's also been some major changes taking place in the finance industry
and those changes could have big impacts on investments and dispute resolutions.
So tell us what's happening on that front. Sure, Sara. So this is something that's near
and dear to my heart. I work and I represent a lot of investment fraud victims, regular people, main
street investors. And you're seeing a significant shift that frankly, most people are not even
recognizing, most people are not talking about and it's very subtle, but it's extremely significant.
And what's happening is the traditional model in the financial services industry is, is brokers,
brokerage firms, but it's shifting away now to registered investment advisors. And brokerage
firms they are, are, are regulated, they're monitored by FINRA, the financial industry
regulatory authority. These RIAs are regulated by the SEC and by state regulators and what's
happened is you've seen a huge boom where people who were previously brokers are now becoming
registered investment advisors. They're leaving the big firms they were a part of, and they're
going off on their own as a solo individual or 1, 2, 3 individuals with the firm and investors,
mainstream investors, don't understand the difference of this. So you see a lot of very,
very small firms where the regulations are not as consistent, where the compliance systems are
not as consistent and this is creating a number of issues and problems for investors. You're actually
seeing, there's 14,000 registered investment advisors. Today, there's only about 3,500 or less
brokerage firms. So the shift is significant and there's a lot of reasons for it and a lot
of regulatory arbitrage that's happening. So we're hearing that there's something
like $110 trillion being managed by these RIAs, is what we're calling them. Now,
what effect does this have on investors? Are we talking about big business investors or are
we talking about mom and pop investing their 401ks, their retirement plans? Tell us that.
Sure. So you're, you're exactly right. And there are some, sure, there's some institutional
investors, but it's 61 million clients, that $110 trillion you talked about is 61 million
clients. The lion's share of those clients are regular mom and pop main street investors. People
who are trusting an advisor to act in their best interest. And that's the whole thing about this.
Registered investment advisors are supposed to be fiduciaries, which is great, that's,
it to us, that's significant, fiduciary means put the client's interests first. You have to
do what's best for the client. But the reality is that fiduciary standard is not being enforced
and in fact, the regulations are extremely inconsistent. There's not enough regulatory
examinations going on. You actually see examples where customer complaints are at a five-year high,
but regulatory actions, disciplinary actions are at a five-year low. Restitution is at a
five-year low. So what's happening is you see this shift and it's creating all sorts of problems.
Arbitration is another issue where these clients are being forced into arbitration and it's
incredibly inconsistent. There's mandatory arbitration clause. In FINRA, there's one
forum. Instead now, you're getting divided into numerous forums and there's different rules.
Some people create their own rules. There's a, we saw recently with a case where somebody had
a Christian conciliation rules and it's not a standardized forum. This makes it very,
very complicated and to make matters worse, these firms, they're very small. It's not
a big brokerage firm that has thousands and thousands of employees. So if something goes wrong
and clients suffer harm, these firms are not even required to have insurance, Sara. So you and I,
in Florida, we have to have insurance to drive our cars. But these registered
investment advisors who are managing trillions, tens of trillions of dollars of retirees money,
if they don't, if they get sued, if they do something wrong, if they make
faulty recommendations, and they don't have to have insurance and they don't necessarily
even have to pay the award, which is a huge issue. So these issues need to get addressed.
Yeah, that's very, very significant and I hope you continue to address them.