Somashekara’s arrival marks a reunion with his former McGuireWoods partner John Lukanski, who himself returned to Reed Smith in 2018. Together with their partners Thao Ngo and Jeff Silberman, they form the foundation for Reed Smith’s broker-dealer and investment adviser practice, an area of specific need for the firm’s institutional bank clients, as well as regional banks and other financial and non-bank institutions with broker-dealer affiliates.

Somashekara represents financial institutions and registered professionals nationwide in regulatory investigations and enforcement actions initiated by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and other federal and state financial regulators. He also counsels firms and individuals on compliance with federal and state grand jury subpoenas, other law enforcement inquiries and related litigation and arbitration matters. throughout the country in complex regulatory investigations and enforcement actions initiated by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) and state securities regulators, and in securities litigation and arbitration.

Somashekara has also has led dozens of complex internal investigations and in doing so, has counselled firms and their legal, compliance, risk, human resources and employee relations professionals on a wide range of issues including sales practice violations, operational deficiencies, potential supervisory liability, reputational risk, compliance with industry rules and regulations, the development and enhancement of policies and procedures, employee misconduct, corrective action, and customer remediation.