By the Templateez Team · Licensed Attorney · June 2026

Securities Fraud Intake Forms: Capturing What Matters Before the Clock Runs

A retired school principal sits across your desk with a banker’s box of monthly brokerage statements. Over eighteen months, her broker moved $1.4 million in retirement savings through 327 separate trades — mostly in and out of the same basket of mid-cap energy stocks — generating $186,000 in commissions while the account lost forty percent of its value. She found out three weeks ago, when her accountant flagged the 1099. She thinks the limitations period on her federal claim may have already started running the day those statements hit her mailbox.

She might be right. And whether you can help her depends almost entirely on what you capture in the next forty-five minutes.

Securities fraud intake is unforgiving in a way that most civil litigation is not. The limitations periods are short and rigid. The damages models are technical and theory-specific. The forum — FINRA arbitration, federal court, state court — is often locked in by a pre-dispute arbitration clause the client signed years ago and does not remember. A general commercial litigation intake form will get you the client’s name and a description of the problem. It will not get you the six things that determine whether the case is viable: the specific fraud theory, the investment timeline, the damages calculation, the limitations analysis, the forum, and the documentary evidence that either exists or has already been destroyed. A purpose-built securities fraud intake form is designed to capture all of them at the first meeting.

Type of fraud alleged: the classification that controls everything else

Securities fraud is not a single cause of action. It is a family of claims, each with its own elements, defenses, damages model, and procedural requirements. The first job of the intake form is to classify the fraud, because everything downstream — forum, limitations, damages, discovery scope — flows from that classification.

• Section 10(b) / Rule 10b-5 fraud — the workhorse federal claim. Requires a material misrepresentation or omission, scienter, connection to the purchase or sale of a security, reliance, economic loss, and loss causation. In a class action, reliance is typically established through the fraud-on-the-market presumption under Basic v. Levinson. In an individual claim, the client must establish actual reliance, which means documenting every representation the broker or issuer made and every piece of information the client reviewed before investing. Your intake needs to capture the specific misrepresentation — not “my broker lied to me,” but “my broker told me the fund had averaged twelve percent annual returns for five years, and the actual return over that period was negative two percent.”
• Insider trading — trading on material nonpublic information in breach of a duty. The intake must identify whether the client is the alleged insider, a tippee, or the issuer. It must capture the source of the information, the relationship between the tipper and tippee, whether a Rule 10b5-1 trading plan was in place, and the specific trades at issue. Under the misappropriation theory recognized in United States v. O’Hagan, the duty can arise outside the issuer-shareholder relationship entirely — a lawyer trading on information learned from a client engagement, an accountant acting on pre-release earnings data. Your form needs to capture not just what was traded but how the information was obtained and who owed a duty to whom.
• Ponzi scheme / investment fraud — the client invested in something that turned out to be fabricated, non-existent, or fundamentally different from what was represented. These cases have their own complications: the receiver or trustee appointed to unwind the scheme may have clawback claims against the client if they received “profits” that were actually other investors’ principal. Your intake must determine not just what the client lost, but what they withdrew — because net winners in a Ponzi scheme face a very different legal posture than net losers.
• Churning — excessive trading designed to generate commissions rather than serve the client’s investment objectives. Churning is established through quantitative metrics: the turnover ratio (annualized purchases divided by average account equity), the cost-to-equity ratio (total costs divided by average equity), and the commission-to-equity ratio. An account with a turnover ratio above six and a cost-to-equity ratio above twenty percent is presumptively churned under most FINRA arbitration panel standards. The intake must capture enough transactional detail to calculate these ratios — or at least identify whether the data exists to calculate them later.
• Unsuitable investment recommendations — the broker recommended investments that were inconsistent with the client’s stated objectives, risk tolerance, time horizon, liquidity needs, or financial situation. Since June 2020, FINRA’s Regulation Best Interest (Reg BI) has raised the standard from traditional suitability to a “best interest” obligation, but the practical analysis at intake remains the same: what did the client tell the broker about their needs, what did the broker recommend, and how far apart were those two things? A seventy-two-year-old retiree with $900,000 in an IRA and a “conservative income” objective whose broker put forty percent of the account into leveraged ETFs and options has a straightforward suitability claim. The intake form needs to capture both sides — the client’s actual profile and the investments that were actually made.
• Material misrepresentation in connection with an offering — fraud in a prospectus, private placement memorandum, or other offering document. Sections 11 and 12(a)(2) of the Securities Act of 1933 provide strict liability and negligence-based claims, respectively, for material misstatements in registration statements and prospectuses. The intake must identify the specific document, the specific misstatement, and when the client received and relied on it. These claims carry their own limitations period under Securities Act Section 13 — one year from discovery and an absolute three-year repose from the date of the offering — which is separate from the Lampf period for Exchange Act claims.

Getting the fraud type right at the first meeting is not a formality. A churning claim lives or dies on transaction data and quantitative analysis. A 10b-5 claim requires scienter. An insider trading defense turns on the information chain and the existence of a pre-existing trading plan. Each type points the attorney toward different evidence, different deadlines, and different forums.

Investment details: the securities, the accounts, and the money

Securities fraud claims are built on transactional facts, not narratives. “My broker lost my money” is a complaint. “My broker purchased 4,000 shares of ABCD Corp at $37.50 on March 12 in my Roth IRA, which had a conservative growth objective, and sold them six days later at $31.10 to buy the same position in my taxable account” is the beginning of a case. The intake form must drill into the specifics.

• Security type — common stock, preferred stock, corporate bonds, municipal bonds, mutual funds, ETFs, options (calls or puts, covered or naked), structured products, variable annuities, REITs (publicly traded or non-traded), limited partnerships, private placements, promissory notes, cryptocurrency or digital assets. The security type dictates which regulations apply, what suitability standards govern the recommendation, and what damages model is appropriate. Non-traded REITs, for example, carry unique problems: they are illiquid, their stated valuations are often inflated, and the commissions embedded in the sales load can exceed seven percent.
• Amount invested — total principal contributed to the account or investment, broken down by funding source if possible. Did the client roll over a 401(k)? Liquidate a prior account? Take a home equity loan to fund the investment? The source of funds matters for damages and for telling the story to an arbitration panel or jury.
• Broker, dealer, and advisory firm — the name of the individual broker or adviser, their CRD number, the name and CRD number of the employing broker-dealer or RIA. In failure-to-supervise claims, the firm is the primary target, not the individual broker. The intake must capture enough identifying information to pull BrokerCheck and IAPD records before the second meeting. For a deeper dive on what securities law intake forms should capture about the broker’s regulatory history — CRD records, prior complaints, U5 termination disclosures — that companion piece covers the full landscape.
• Account type — individual brokerage, joint tenants, IRA (traditional, Roth, SEP, SIMPLE), 401(k) rollover, trust account, custodial (UGMA/UTMA), corporate or entity account, margin account. Whether the account was discretionary or non-discretionary is the threshold question in unauthorized trading claims. An IRA or retirement account intensifies suitability concerns because the client’s age, time horizon, and inability to replace losses all weigh against aggressive strategies.
• Concentration — what percentage of the client’s total investable assets was in the account at issue? What percentage was concentrated in a single security, sector, or asset class? A client who lost $200,000 in a speculative biotech position has a different claim depending on whether that $200,000 was five percent of their portfolio or ninety percent of their life savings.

Timeline: when the fraud happened and when the client found out

Securities fraud cases have two timelines, and the intake form must capture both. The first is the timeline of the underlying conduct — when the misrepresentations were made, when the trades were executed, when the losses materialized. The second is the timeline of discovery — when the client first learned or should have learned that something was wrong.

• Date(s) of the investment or transaction — the purchase dates for the securities at issue. In a churning case, the relevant period may span years of trading. In a Ponzi scheme case, the initial investment date and each subsequent contribution are all relevant.
• Date(s) of the misrepresentation — when did the broker or issuer make the statement or omission that the client is alleging was fraudulent? Was it in a single meeting, a series of phone calls, a written prospectus? The date of the misrepresentation starts the repose period under both the Exchange Act (five years for 10b-5 under the Dodd-Frank amendment to 28 U.S.C. § 1658) and the Securities Act (three years from the offering).
• Date the client discovered the fraud — actual discovery, not constructive discovery. Did the client read an article? Receive a regulatory notice? Get a call from a FINRA investigator? Hire a new adviser who reviewed the old account? The discovery date starts the shorter prong of the limitations period — two years for 10b-5 claims (post-Dodd-Frank), one year for Securities Act claims.
• Storm warnings and inquiry notice — what information was available to the client before they actually discovered the fraud? Monthly account statements showing losses, news coverage of the issuer’s financial problems, SEC enforcement actions against the broker’s prior clients — all of these can establish inquiry notice, which triggers a duty to investigate and can start the limitations clock even if the client did not actually read the statement or article. The intake form must capture what the client received and when, so the attorney can assess whether the client was on constructive notice before they claim actual discovery.
• Prior complaints or communications with the broker — did the client complain about the trading activity, the losses, or the recommendations? When? In writing or verbally? A written complaint to the broker in 2024 about excessive trading makes it difficult to argue in 2026 that the client just discovered the churning last month.

Losses calculation: out-of-pocket vs. benefit-of-the-bargain vs. well-managed account

The client knows they lost money. The attorney needs to know how to measure the loss, because the damages model depends on the fraud theory, and the wrong model produces either an inflated number that destroys credibility or an understated number that leaves money on the table.

• Out-of-pocket damages — the standard measure for federal 10b-5 claims. The difference between the price the client paid for the security and its actual value at the time of purchase (absent the fraud). This requires expert valuation of what the security was “really worth,” which is straightforward for publicly traded stocks but enormously complex for private placements, non-traded REITs, or structured products with embedded derivatives.
• Benefit-of-the-bargain damages — the difference between the value as represented and the actual value. This measure is available under many state fraud statutes and is typically more generous than out-of-pocket. If the broker told the client the fund was worth $50 per share and it was actually worth $12, the benefit-of-the-bargain measure captures the full $38 gap, not just the difference between the purchase price and actual value.
• Well-managed account / market-adjusted damages — the standard approach in churning and suitability cases. The expert constructs a hypothetical portfolio consistent with the client’s stated objectives and risk tolerance, benchmarks it against an appropriate index (S&P 500, Bloomberg Aggregate Bond, a blended index), and measures the difference between the hypothetical portfolio’s performance and the actual account’s performance over the same period. This method captures both the losses from bad investments and the opportunity cost of not being properly invested.
• Rescissionary damages — available under Securities Act Sections 12(a)(1) and 12(a)(2). The client returns the security (or its remnants) and recovers the full purchase price plus statutory interest. This is the most favorable measure when the security has become worthless or nearly so.
• Net investment loss — the simplest calculation: total money in minus total money out. This is the starting point, but it is rarely the ending point. It does not account for market movement, opportunity cost, or the time value of money. The intake form should capture enough raw data — total deposits, total withdrawals, current account value — to compute the net loss immediately, while also flagging that a more sophisticated damages analysis will be needed.

The intake form should capture the client’s total out-of-pocket investment, the current value of the account or investment, any withdrawals or distributions received, and any tax consequences already realized. This gives the attorney a preliminary damages range at the first meeting while the expert analysis is pending.

Regulatory filings: what has already been reported and to whom

By the time a securities fraud client reaches an attorney, the regulatory machinery may already be in motion — or the client may have missed the window to use it effectively. The intake form must capture the current regulatory posture:

• SEC complaints — has the client filed a complaint with the SEC through the online tip, complaint, and referral system (TCR)? The SEC receives thousands of TCRs annually and investigates a fraction of them, but a filed TCR creates a record and may entitle the client to a whistleblower award under Dodd-Frank Section 21F if the information leads to a successful enforcement action with sanctions exceeding $1 million.
• FINRA complaints — has the client filed a complaint with FINRA’s Office of the Whistleblower or through BrokerCheck? Has the client already initiated a FINRA arbitration? If so, the statement of claim has been filed, and the case is already on a procedural track with its own deadlines.
• State attorney general or state securities regulator — has the client reported the fraud to the state AG or the state securities division? Some states, including New York under the Martin Act, have their own securities fraud enforcement authority with broader reach than the federal statutes — the Martin Act does not require scienter, making it a powerful tool for the state AG but also a potential complication for private claims that depend on the same facts.
• Criminal referral — has the matter been referred to the DOJ or a U.S. Attorney’s office? Is there a parallel criminal investigation? If the client is a victim, a criminal prosecution of the perpetrator may aid the civil recovery. If the client is a potential defendant or witness, the criminal posture changes every strategic decision, starting with whether the client should invoke the Fifth Amendment in the civil proceeding.
• Receiver or trustee appointment — in Ponzi scheme and large-scale fraud cases, the SEC or a federal court may appoint a receiver or a bankruptcy trustee to marshal assets and pursue recoveries. If a receiver is in place, the client’s individual claims may be subordinate to or preempted by the receivership. The intake must determine whether a receivership exists, who the receiver is, and whether the client has filed a claim in the receivership proceeding.

Statute of limitations: the deadlines that do not bend

Securities fraud limitations periods are among the most unforgiving in civil litigation. They are short, they run from events that are sometimes ambiguous, and the repose periods are absolute. The intake form must capture enough date-specific information for the attorney to assess timeliness before leaving the first meeting.

• Exchange Act 10b-5 claims — two years from discovery of the fraud (or when a reasonably diligent plaintiff would have discovered it) and five years from the date of the violation. The five-year period was extended from three years by the Dodd-Frank Act in 2010 (amending 28 U.S.C. § 1658(b)). The repose period is absolute — equitable tolling does not apply.
• Securities Act Section 11 and 12 claims — one year from discovery and three years from the date of the offering or sale. These periods are even shorter than the Exchange Act periods and apply to claims arising from registration statements and prospectuses.
• State blue sky claims — each state has its own limitations period for securities fraud under its blue sky statute. Some are more generous than the federal periods. New Jersey’s Uniform Securities Law (N.J.S.A. 49:3-71) provides a two-year period from discovery. New York’s Martin Act claims by the AG have no private right of action, but common-law fraud in New York has a six-year limitations period from the date of the fraud or two years from discovery, whichever is later.
• FINRA arbitration eligibility rule — FINRA Rule 12206 bars arbitration of any claim where the event giving rise to the dispute occurred more than six years before the filing of the arbitration. This is not a limitations defense — it is an eligibility rule that can be raised by the respondent or by the arbitration panel on its own motion. A churning claim spanning 2018 to 2022, filed in 2026, may be eligible as to the later trades but barred as to the earlier ones.
• Tolling considerations — fraudulent concealment (did the broker actively hide the fraud?), the discovery rule (when should the client have known?), class action tolling under American Pipe (was the client a putative member of a class action that tolled the individual limitations period?), and equitable tolling for infancy, incompetency, or other disabilities. The intake form should ask whether the client was a member of any class action, whether they had any cognitive or other impairment during the relevant period, and whether the broker took active steps to conceal the trading activity or losses.

Class action vs. individual claim: choosing the right vehicle

Some securities fraud claims are best pursued individually. Others belong in a class action or should be coordinated with one that already exists. The intake form must capture enough information to make that determination:

• Existing class actions — is there a pending securities class action arising from the same conduct? Has a lead plaintiff been appointed under the PSLRA? Has the class been certified? If the client is a putative class member, they must decide whether to remain in the class, opt out and pursue an individual claim, or seek appointment as lead plaintiff (which requires filing a motion within sixty days of the first complaint’s filing).
• Individual vs. class recovery — class action recoveries in securities fraud cases average between two and five percent of estimated losses. Clients with large individual losses — typically above $500,000 — often recover more through individual FINRA arbitration or a direct federal action. The intake must capture the total loss amount to assess whether the economics favor individual pursuit.
• Broker-specific vs. issuer-wide fraud — if the fraud was committed by an individual broker (churning, unsuitable recommendations, unauthorized trading), the claim is inherently individual and does not lend itself to class treatment. If the fraud was in a public filing, prospectus, or market-wide misrepresentation by an issuer, a class action or multi-district litigation may be the appropriate vehicle.
• Arbitration clause — if the client signed a pre-dispute arbitration agreement (nearly every brokerage account agreement contains one), FINRA arbitration is the exclusive forum for disputes with the broker-dealer. Class actions in FINRA arbitration are prohibited under Rule 12204. The client can participate in a class action in federal court against the issuer while simultaneously pursuing a FINRA arbitration against the broker for different theories of liability.

FINRA arbitration vs. federal court: where this case will actually be decided

Forum selection in securities fraud cases is rarely a strategic choice. It is usually dictated by the arbitration clause, the identity of the defendant, and the nature of the claim. But the intake form must still capture the facts that determine forum, because occasionally there is a genuine choice — and because the client needs to understand, at the first meeting, where their case is headed.

• FINRA arbitration — mandatory for disputes between customers and FINRA member firms or associated persons, if the customer requests it (FINRA Rule 12200). No discovery in the litigation sense — instead, the parties exchange documents under FINRA’s Discovery Guide. No dispositive motions in practice — FINRA has narrowed the grounds for motions to dismiss to the point where they are rarely granted. Panels of three arbitrators (one public chair, one public, one industry), or a single public arbitrator for claims under $100,000. Awards are final with extremely limited judicial review under the Federal Arbitration Act — essentially limited to corruption, fraud, or the arbitrators exceeding their powers under Hall Street Associates v. Mattel.
• Federal court — exclusive jurisdiction for Exchange Act claims (Section 10(b) / Rule 10b-5). Concurrent jurisdiction with state courts for Securities Act claims (Section 22). The PSLRA applies in federal court and imposes heightened pleading requirements for scienter, automatic discovery stays pending the resolution of motions to dismiss, and mandatory sanctions for frivolous litigation. The difference between pleading scienter in federal court under the PSLRA and proving fraud in a FINRA arbitration where no motion to dismiss is available is enormous — and the intake must capture enough facts to evaluate viability under both standards.
• State court — available for state blue sky claims and common-law fraud claims that are not preempted by SLUSA. State courts do not apply the PSLRA’s heightened pleading standards. For individual claims (as opposed to class actions), state court may offer procedural advantages, including broader discovery and more permissive pleading. But SLUSA preempts state-law class actions that allege fraud “in connection with the purchase or sale of a covered security,” which pushes most securities class actions into federal court.

Documentation: the evidence that makes or breaks the case

Securities fraud cases are won or lost on documents. Not on the client’s narrative about what the broker said over coffee — on the account statements, trade confirmations, emails, and new-account forms that either corroborate or contradict that narrative. The intake form must inventory what the client has, identify what they need to obtain, and initiate preservation of everything.

• Account statements — monthly and quarterly statements from every account at issue. These are the foundation of the damages analysis and the source data for turnover ratios, cost-to-equity calculations, and portfolio concentration analysis. Clients frequently have some statements but not all of them. The intake should note the gap periods so the attorney can request the missing statements from the firm under FINRA Rule 2267 or through discovery.
• Trade confirmations — individual trade confirmations for the disputed transactions, showing the security, quantity, price, commission, and markup or markdown. In churning cases, the confirmations show the pattern of in-and-out trading that the monthly statements may not fully reveal.
• New account forms and suitability questionnaires — the documents the client completed when opening the account. These memorialize the client’s stated investment objectives, risk tolerance, time horizon, income, net worth, and liquid net worth. In suitability cases, these forms are the benchmark against which the broker’s recommendations are measured. If the broker altered the forms to reflect a higher risk tolerance than the client actually expressed, that is an independent fraud claim.
• Prospectuses, offering memoranda, and subscription agreements — the disclosure documents for any specific investment at issue. In a private placement fraud case, the PPM is the central document. In an IPO fraud case, the registration statement and prospectus control the Section 11 analysis.
• Communications — emails, text messages, handwritten notes, voicemails, recorded calls. What did the broker say to the client about the investment? What did the client say back? In an era of electronic communication, the written record is often extensive, but clients may not realize that text messages and personal email accounts contain relevant evidence that must be preserved.
• Marketing materials — brochures, pitch decks, seminar presentations, and any materials the broker or firm provided to the client during the sales process. These establish the representations that were made and can support a misrepresentation claim even if the prospectus contained adequate disclosures — because the broker may have contradicted or supplemented the prospectus verbally or in writing.
• Tax returns and financial statements — the client’s tax returns establish their actual financial position, income, and investment sophistication. A client who reported $40,000 in annual income and claimed $200,000 in net worth on the new account form has a different suitability posture than a client who reported $400,000 in income and $3 million in net worth. Tax returns also document realized losses, which feed the damages analysis.

The intake form should conclude the documentation section with a clear preservation instruction: stop deleting emails, stop discarding statements, and do not communicate with the broker or the firm about the dispute without consulting counsel first. In securities fraud cases, a single phone call from the client to the broker after the attorney is retained can create a waiver issue or provide the respondent with testimony to use at the hearing.

How securities fraud intake differs from general securities law intake

A securities law intake form covers the full spectrum of securities matters — enforcement defense, regulatory compliance, corporate governance, and transactional work alongside litigation and arbitration. A securities fraud intake form is narrower and deeper. It is built for the attorney whose client is a victim (or an accused perpetrator) of fraud specifically, and it drills into the details that fraud claims require: the specific misrepresentation, the quantitative trading metrics, the damages model, the limitations analysis, and the documentary evidence chain.

The distinction matters operationally. A securities law practice handling a Reg D compliance review does not need a churning turnover ratio at intake. A securities fraud practice handling a churning case absolutely does. The fraud-specific form captures what the fraud-specific practice needs without the regulatory compliance and transactional fields that would clutter the intake for a case that is going to FINRA arbitration or federal court.

For attorneys whose practices span both transactional securities work and fraud litigation, pairing the two forms covers the full range. And for those who also handle non-securities financial planning disputes — claims against financial planners for negligent advice, fiduciary breach under ERISA, or state-law malpractice — the financial planning intake captures the advisory relationship details that securities fraud intake does not address.

If you handle securities fraud as part of a broader litigation practice, the Legal Bundle includes securities fraud, securities law, commercial litigation, and 35 other legal practice areas, each with practice-specific intake fields designed by a licensed attorney.