Jonah America Toleno

Ms. Toleno is a partner based in the Firm’s San Diego office. She is licensed to practice in California and Arizona. Her practice is focused on securities arbitration and litigation, business litigation, and alternative dispute resolution. She appears regularly as trial counsel in matters pending before state and federal courts and in various arbitration forums, including the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA, formerly known as the NASD) and the American Arbitration Association. She represents a wide range of individual and commercial clients in business disputes, complex securities litigations, securities fraud and Ponzi scheme prosecutions, customer-brokerage securities arbitrations, intra-industry brokerage employment disputes, and commercial transactions. Her intra-industry cases include employment law cases, firm transition matters, trade secret issues and Broker Protocol consultation. She acts as outside counsel to businesses including registered broker-dealers and investment advisory firms. She also represented individuals and business entities before FINRA and the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) in investigation and enforcement actions.

Ms. Toleno has an “AV” (Preeminent) ranking under the Martindale-Hubbell attorney ratings system, with a 5.0 out of 5.0 overall rating in Securities Law, General Practice and Business Law. Martindale-Hubbell reserves the “AV” ranking for those attorneys whose peers rank him or her at the highest level of professional excellence and who adhere to the highest professional standards of conduct, ethics, reliability, and diligence.

Ms. Toleno attended the University of California at Berkeley, where she majored in Legal Studies and minored in Music. She obtained her law degree from the University of California Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco, California. While at U.C. Hastings, she was a staff editor for the Hastings Women’s Law Journal and served as President of various student organizations. She devotes her time regularly to local community and bar organizations and serves as a volunteer in various capacities, including participating in the San Diego County Bar Association’s anti-bullying initiatives, judging for the University of San Diego School of Law Moot Court Competition, mentoring law students and young lawyers informally and through local bar associations, and volunteering at her children’s schools and sports leagues. She is fluent in Tagalog, the national language of the Philippines.