By: Nicolas Saravia / Staff Writer

The College of Law has been granted $250,000 from the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority Investor Education Foundation, allowing the installment of an Investor Advocacy Clinic.

The clinic will give law students the opportunity to represent individuals who have suffered from misconduct or mistreatment by a broker at no cost. The University’s College of Law is one of four law schools selected for a grant total of $1 million by the FINRA, which seeks to provide services free of cost to fill in the gaps of legal representation in areas of high demand.

The initiative was born out of the economic downturn that the nation has suffered in recent years, and is designed to provide services to undeserved modest investors that cannot afford an hourly rate.

Among the selectees for the advocacy clinic are Howard University of Washington, D.C., Pepperdine University of Malibu, California and Suffolk University Law School of Boston.

The FINRA Investor Education Foundation is the largest foundation dedicated to investor education in the United States and has granted over $50 million in financial education and investor protection initiatives and projects.

The schools selected were judged by commitment to clinical and investor education through creative and proactive community outreach.

The FINRA fund highlighted that it is necessary that each of these institutions maintain its clinics after the three-year grant period has expired

The supervised law students will have the opportunity to take on securities disputes and gain experiences in out-of-court resolutions.

The program, lead by Visiting Clinical Assistant Professor Robert K. Savage, is expected to involve students in mediation and arbitration, client interviewing, legal analysis, drafting legal documents, arguing motions, professional responsibility and choice of relief. Savage has almost two decades of dedicated experience with investor issues.

According to an FINRA news release, “students who participate in these clinics will not receive compensation, but will benefit from serving the public interest, earning course credit and gaining experience representing clients in actual cases.”

Aside from legal cases and seminars, students will reach out to the community, participating in community outreach activities and public informational presentations.

The clinic is designed to give preference to elderly clients, such as retirees that have lost their savings.

Representation is available for those who do not speak English as their first language, which will remove a major barrier for some. The clinic will also give preference to clients who are elderly and living in South Florida.

The Investor Advocacy Clinic will be the sixth in-house clinic to be set up at the university’s Law school, which are available each Fall and Spring semesters, including the Carlos A. Costa Immigration and Human Rights Clinic, the Community Development Clinic, the Immigrant Children’s Justice Clinic, the H.E.L.P. (Health, Ethics, Law and Policy) Clinic, and the Education Advocacy Clinic.

“Our nation’s financial crisis has caused many individuals, often retirees, to lose their life savings,” said Troy Elder, interim director of Clinical Education to FIU Media Relations. “FIU is going to do its part to help these individuals.”