A native Floridian, Debra has over 35 years of legal experience representing financial institutions, wirehouses, insurance companies and investment professionals, as well as insured broker-dealers, officers and directors, and financial advisers in retail, industry and employment disputes as well as in regulatory matters. Debra has handled claims exceeding hundreds of millions of dollars in court and in arbitrations filed with the NYSE, AAA, NASD and FINRA. She also represents registered persons, institutions and individual investors.

Heather B. Middleton is Counsel in the Securities Litigation, Arbitration, Regulation and Investigations Practice of Riker Danzig Scherer Hyland & Perretti LLP. With extensive experience representing broker-dealers and financial advisers in FINRA arbitrations as well as in state and federal court matters, Heather focuses her practice on defending financial services firms and their employees in securities litigation, regulatory investigations, and in enforcement proceedings. She has successfully defended investor and employment claims relating to a broad range of issues, and has handled regulatory matters involving complex issues including order handling, mini flash crash, research practices, electronic blue sheet reporting, insider trading, and more. Additionally, Heather serves her clients in an advisory role in assisting with drafting compliance policies and procedures and in helping firms comply with regulatory requirements. She also performs due diligence on behalf of Authorized Participants and lead market-makers providing seed capital for the launch of new exchange traded funds. Before practicing law, Heather was an analyst on a High Net Worth Team in the Private Banking and Investment Group of Merrill Lynch, where she dealt with securities laws, branch operations, portfolio management, trading, securities regulations and client expectations.

Peter Tepley focuses his practice on commercial litigation. He represents securities broker dealers, including clearing brokers, and their registered representatives in customer, employment, and industry disputes in FINRA arbitrations as well as in state and federal courts. He also represents public and private companies and their officers and directors in a variety of complex business disputes, including business torts and breach of contract cases. Peter defends businesses and individual officers and directors in class actions, including securities class actions. In addition, he represents fiduciaries and other parties in will contest and breach of fiduciary duty cases.