Lonnie L. Simpson is a partner at Shutts & Bowen and maintains offices in both Tampa and Sarasota. He is a member of the firm’s Business Litigation Practice Group.

For over 25 years, Lonnie has focused his complex commercial-dispute-resolution practice on financial markets, commercial and corporate finance, intellectual property and technology. He represents financial services providers, including commercial and investment banks and individual broker-dealers, for securities litigation matters.

He has also represented financial services providers, telecommunications service providers, product manufacturers and product distributors for litigation before the state and federal courts and arbitration before domestic and international private arbitration panels.

Lonnie is experienced in representing his clients in state and federal courts, appellate courts, and before state and federal regulatory authorities and self-regulatory securities arbitration organizations.

Relevant Experience

  • Prosecution and defense of customer and industry-related claims before FINRA Dispute Resolution across the United States, where the claims arbitrated varied from margin call and account liquidation issues to corporate and individual broker-dealer auction rate securities sales;
  • Defense of a national corporate broker-dealer in registration revocation proceedings before a state administrative securities regulator, requiring in-depth internal investigation, legal analysis under an array of federal and state law, coordination of defense against similar claims across the United States;
  • Prosecution and defense of Internet-related matters including domain name dispute proceedings before the World Intellectual Property Association;
  • Prosecution of copyright infringement and unfair competition matters on behalf of a national technical-education-provider and for computer software development companies;
  • Advising national employers of skilled professionals as to compensation structures, trade secret protection, non-competition agreements preparation and enforcement;
    Prosecution of patent infringement and trademark infringement matters on behalf of an international product manufacturer and distributor;
  • Defense of a domestic investment advisor, its principals, an offshore investment fund and its director against  purported “death spiral” securities fraud and unlawful market manipulation claims asserted by a public company and arising out of a securities purchase agreement for future priced securities;
  • Defense of an individual investor, market-maker and CBOE seat-holder in defense against purported “naked short-selling, death spiral financing” securities fraud claims, civil conspiracy claims and claims based on state and federal securities regulation statutes;
  • Direction and management of electronically-stored-data acquisition, analysis and production projects involving billions of records, along with supervision of staffs of attorney-reviewers across the United States to meet extremely short discovery deadlines;
  • Defense of  a multiple patent-owner in the general field of computer network communications against patent infringement claims and demand for preliminary injunctive relief in the federal courts;
  • Defense of  an international telecommunications service provider against improper provisioning, illegal billing, and deceptive trade practice claims before a Florida circuit court, requiring compilation and analysis of over one billion call-data-records and electronic communications over a five-year period to advise the client, to develop and execute litigation strategy and to comply with significant discovery requirements;
  • On a pro bono basis, prosecution of claims under the International Child Abduction Remedies Act and the Hague Convention on Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction on behalf of parents of foreign-national children  attempting to re-establish contact with their children following wrongful removal of the children from their home-countries.

Credentials

Education

  • University of Florida College of Law, J.D., 1989
  • University of Florida, Warrington College of Business Administration, M.B.A., 1989
  • University of Alabama, B.S., Criminology and Political Science, magna cum laude, 1985
    • Phi Beta Kappa, Alpha Chapter
    • Pi Sigma Alpha

Bar Admissions

  • Florida
  • District of Columbia

Court Admissions

  • U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida
  • U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida
  • U.S. District Court for the Southern Florida District of Florida
  • U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Middle District of Florida
  • U.S. Bankruptcy Court Northern District of Florida
  • U.S. Bankruptcy Court Southern Florida District of Florida
  • U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona
  • U.S. Court of Federal Claims
  • U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit

Professional and Civic

  • Hillsborough County Bar Association
  • St. Petersburg Bar Association
  • Sarasota County Bar Association

News & Insights

Accolades

  • Best Lawyers in America®
    • Commercial Litigation, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024
    • Litigation - Securities, 2023, 2024

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Shutts & Bowen, established in 1910, is a full-service business law firm with approximately 270 lawyers located in eight offices across Florida.

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