Montgomery G. Griffin
Attorney at Law

949.721.9781

Known for his thorough preparation and attention to important details, Montgomery (“Monty”) Griffin is an investment loss recovery attorney who, since 1996, has represented aggrieved investors (including many elderly investors) and registered representatives nationwide in disputes with Wall Street, financial advisors, and other financial services firms. The nuanced details involved in disputes between investors and their former advisors are part of Monty’s DNA. Monty’s experience in the securities industry began in 1986 when Merrill Lynch hired him to become a financial advisor after he had returned from a year-long Masters program at the London School of Economics in London, England. In all, Monty worked for approximately 10 years (1986-1995) as a financial advisor for two of Wall Street’s largest firms, Merrill Lynch and PaineWebber (now known as UBS Financial Services). During that period, Monty always had a perfectly clean compliance record. While working as a financial advisor for UBS, Monty attended law school for four years as a night student, graduating in 1995.

In addition to his law practice, Monty is now in his third decade as a member of FINRA’s Board of Arbitrators (following his admittance in 1995 while working for Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker). Since his selection, Monty has been appointed by FINRA to hear and judge approximately 40 cases, including as Panel Chairperson. Monty has also been qualified many times as a testifying expert witness to opine on the standards of conduct for financial advisors and their supervisors, as well as the proper assessment of damages by arbitration panels in California and New York, as well as the Superior Court of California.

Monty has been honored to serve on the faculty of the Los Angeles County Bar Association Securities Arbitration program, including having been a featured investors’ attorney speaker before arbitrators, securities attorneys, and FINRA staff members. Monty has also been featured by the press related to securities issues and case results he has obtained, including in the Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, Thomson Reuters, Orange County Register, the Daily Journal, and the Dow Jones Newswires.  

Monty’s decades-long approach of carefully screening and accepting cases only with strong merit (and frequently rejecting weaker cases) allows him to personally work and communicate closely with each client of the firm on a one-on-one basis to achieve the best result possible. Monty and his team have recovered many, many millions of dollars for wronged investors, as well as having represented financial advisors who have been wrongfully terminated, pursued for unpaid promissory note balances, defamed on their Form U5, or misled during their recruitment by large Wall Street firms. Monty obtains most of his cases by way of referrals. Indeed, one of Monty’s largest cases (where he represented an elderly widow in Southern California), which settled in 2017, came to him via referral from a longtime judge on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.