Teresa Verges has over 30 years of legal experience in securities regulation and investor protection. She currently serves as Regional Trial Counsel for the Securities and Exchange Commission at the Miami Regional Office, where she leads the trial unit handling all federal court litigation and administrative proceedings arising out of enforcement matters from the regional office. Over the course of her career at Commission, where she previously served as Assistant Director for the Miami Office, Ms. Verges has led the investigative and litigation teams on some of the most significant cases brought by the SEC, and received awards and recognition for her work, including the SEC’s 2011 Arthur F. Matthews Award. Ms. Verges has been recognized as one of “The Top Government Attorneys” in South Florida Business Guide, 2004-2009 is a 2009 Recipient of noted “Florida Legal Elite Government Attorney” in Florida Trend. Ms. Verges was also selected for Women of Color Magazine’s 2010 Top Women in Finance.
she led investigations involving financial fraud, pay-to-play and municipal securities offerings, market manipulation, insider trading, offering fraud, and other violations by broker-dealers and investment advisers
Prior to rejoining the Commission, Ms. Verges was the founding director of the Investor Rights Clinic at the University of Miami School of Law, which represents low-income investors in securities arbitration proceedings before FINRA. Ms. Verges served as clinical professor and director of the Clinic from 2011 through 2021. While at Miami Law supervised law student interns and taught a seminar on the substantive law of securities arbitration, professional responsibility, and practical skills allowing the students to undertake all aspects of client representation. She also taught a separate course on broker-dealer regulation.
Ms. Verges has published articles and participated on panels discussing senior financial exploitation, regulation of financial intermediaries, and ethical issues in securities litigation and arbitration. She served on FINRA’s National Arbitration and Mediation Committee (2014-2018) and FINRA’s Discovery Task Force (2018-2021). Verges previously served as co-Chair on the board of Servicemembers Legal Defense Network (1997-2001).
