Lottery Winner Attorneys
You’re a Lottery Winner-What To Do
Who can you count on to make sure your lottery winnings are secure and protected in order to safeguard your wealth and, at the same time, increase your funds for future generations?
Chicago based Stoltmann Law Offices has represented lottery winners and professional athletes from the NBA, MLB, NFL and the PGA in the last 19 years. We have vast experience in helping those who have won large jackpots or otherwise come into large sums of money quickly to both secure their wealth as well as grow it. We have also represented lottery winners in lawsuits against brokerage firms, accountants and others who have fraudulently or negligently handled their winnings. We are a full service law firm that will protect your lottery winnings as well as handle all litigation against those who would attempt to take what isn’t theirs.
A typical case we have handled involves a Megabucks lottery winner located in the Midwest. The client trusted his earnings with a major brokerage firm and a Milwaukee accounting firm. Financial advisors from the firm invested much of his money in unsuitable stocks and “breathtakingly irresponsible” investments for the former factory worker resulting in massive losses. We successfully sued to recover those funds. We’ve also handled cases for winners of large lottery jackpots like for the $768 million Powerball winner in Wisconsin in April of 2019 handling the building of the financial and legal teams to secure and grow the corpus in a prudent and responsible manner.
Andrew Stoltmann in one of the nation’s top securities attorneys who represents individuals in lawsuits and FINRA arbitration claims against banks, brokerage firms, insurance companies and hedge funds. He is the immediate past President of the Public Investor Arbitration Bar Association (PIABA), an international plaintiff’s bar group of attorneys who sue banks and brokerage firms. He is currently an adjunct law professor at Northwestern School of Law. He also serves as a legal commentator for Fox News and CNBC. He has been on various news programs and has been quoted in national news articles worldwide about the various abuses lottery winners have faced and what is needed to retain and grow the winnings.
Do These 8 Things As Soon As You Win a Jackpot
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Secure The Ticket
The winner is not a true legal winner until the ticket is presented to lottery officials. If the ticket is lost or destroyed, the winner is, as a matter of law, out of luck. There have been multiple cases where a lottery has been “won” but the ticket has been lost or destroyed and the individual who bought the ticket has been unable to claim the prize.
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Call A Lawyer and Then Sign The Ticket
Lottery tickets need to be signed in order to be claimed. You should speak to a lawyer before signing it. Once signed, immediately make a photocopy of the front and the back of the ticket. From now on, you will be working with a copy, not the original. This small piece of paper that was worthless a few hours ago is now worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Treat it that way. Ideally, the ticket should be placed in a safe deposit box. If you don’t have access to one, make sure it is hidden in the safest place possible. There will be no reason to take out the ticket until the day it is claimed.
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Keep Quiet
The worst initial decision a lottery winner can make is sharing the news with other people outside of immediate family. “Friends” and others seeking to help will come out of the woodwork. Once the news spreads the winner will become a massive target of legitimate as well as illegitimate financial professionals worldwide.
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Start Assembling A Team of Financial Professionals
This team should include a CPA, lawyer and team of financial advisors. Few lottery winners have the infrastructure in place to manage a lottery windfall. An experienced team must be put together, and fast. Each team must have at a minimum an attorney, CPA and a financial professional.
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Learn the Basics
Despite having a financial team, the winner must gain some core financial knowledge quickly. With this knowledge it becomes easier to weed out “professionals” or others that might want to scam you.
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Keep the Money Safe Until A Full Plan Is In Place
As Warren Buffet says, “rule number 1 is don’t lose any money.” Because the sum is too large for it to be covered by FDIC insurance, the winnings should be deposited in a brokerage account of a major broker-dealer like Merrill Lynch or Goldman Sachs and it should be initially invested in short term U.S. Treasuries until more concrete investing decisions can be made.
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Trust Nobody
The winner is likely the biggest target of banks, brokerage firms and scammers worldwide. Ultimately, nobody should be trusted. Multiple sets of eyes should be watching everyone who has any access to the funds.
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Call Us For A Free Consultation
Call attorney Andrew Stoltmann for a free consultation on what should be done next.
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