John Lawrence Allen commenced his profession as a prosecutor in the Los Angeles District Attorneys Office where he quickly established a reputation as a highly skilled litigator prosecuting complex white collar crimes. Mr. Allen served in the Trash Detail as a special prosecutor against the Southeast Los Angeles gangs, the Crips and the Brims. Trash (total resources against southeast hoodlums) was a controversial program that became the centerpiece of the movie Colors. After leaving the District Attorneys Office, Mr. Allen specialized in real estate, business and entertainment law representing television actors, feature film producers and real estate companies. Among the many noteworthy cases Mr. Allen tried were Hilton VS Sheraton, an antitrust case in the Hawaiian Islands and Star Trek VS Paramount in which he represented the original cast of the iconic television and feature film franchise.
After leaving the practice of law, Mr. Allen started a private fund where he pioneered program trading devising a hedging and risk arbitrage system for the S&P 500 Stock Index futures market. Mr. Allen created a software program linking exchange floors with a proprietary trading program prior to the invention of the personal computer. After several highly successful years, Mr. Allen was recruited to manage his trading program for Shearson American Express. After a decade working in the investment community, Mr. Allen returned to the practice of law specializing in securities arbitration involving securities regulation, broker/dealer fraud, securities fraud, customer complaints and employment law.
Mr. Allen was asked to assist the United States Permanent Select Committee on Investigations of micro-capital stock fraud and senior abuse in 1996 and also served as Chairman of the Joint Committee of the State Bar of California and the Royal Courts of Justice for England and Wales. He has served on various National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD) forums on procedural reform, seminar speaker and panel member for the NASD, Arbitration Chairman before the American Arbitration Association and is a frequent speaker before professional and lay audiences on recognizing and preventing investment fraud. Mr. Allen has been called upon to provide expert commentary for print and electronic media and has received frequent coverage of high profile cases in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, Business Week, Barron Magazine, CNN, CNBC, NBC Evening News, ABC World News Tonight, Blumberg, National Public Radio and other television and radio programs. Mr. Allen is author of Investor Beware published by John Wiley & Sons, wrote a monthly column on investment fraud for Physician Money Digest and was a contributing author for the Practicing Law Institute.
Mr. Allen and his wife of over 30 years raised two children and currently reside in New Canaan, CT. Mr. Allen serves in the United States Coast Guard Auxiliary and the New Canaan Community Emergency Response Team (CERT).