Sandra Dawn Grannum is a Partner in the Litigation Group at Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP where she is co-chair of the Commercial Litigation Team. She concentrates her practice on securities, broker/dealer arbitration, litigation, mediation and regulatory defense.
Financial Services Litigation. Sandy has tried complex multimillion-dollar arbitrations before FINRA, AAA and JAMS across the country. She has tried more than 50 arbitrations before the NASD and FINRA through award, representing brokerage firms, banks, clearing firms, and associated persons. In addition, she has successfully pursued cases in state and federal courts and in adversarial proceedings before bankruptcy courts.
Employment Litigation. Sandy is an experienced employment law practitioner having tried a number of employment arbitrations and administrative hearings. She has represented a number of corporate clients in federal courts across the country and before the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), as well as state Divisions and Commissions of Human Rights.
General Litigation. Sandy has handled a variety of complex general litigation matters, including shareholder clawback litigations and takeover/business judgment rule litigations, employment discrimination and securities litigation.
Sandy has written and lectured widely on securities and ethics issues. She has been involved in developing compliance programs in response to the Department of Labor fiduciary rule and Dodd-Frank and Sarbanes-Oxley legislation. She chairs the full-day PLI Securities Arbitration Seminar conducted annually in New York City and regularly speaks at the SIFMA C&L Annual Conference and on other CLE programs addressing securities and employment law. Sandy was one of 13 individuals on the FINRA Dispute Resolution Task Force. FINRA impaneled this group to collaborate and suggest strategies to enhance the transparency, impartiality, and efficiency of FINRA's securities dispute resolution forum for all participants. On December 16, 2015, the task force issued its recommendations detailed in the Final Report and Recommendations of the FINRA Dispute Resolution Task Force.
Sandy earned her law degree from Harvard Law School and her bachelor’s degree from New York University. She began her career as a litigation associate at the New York law firm of Cravath, Swaine & Moore before moving to Tenzer Greenblatt to practice securities litigation. Sandy moved in-house to be an Associate General Counsel handling securities litigation at PaineWebber (now UBS Financial Services) in 1997. In November 2001, she became Senior Vice President and Senior Associate General Counsel in PaineWebber/UBS’s Employment Law Unit. In 2003, she formed her own firm, Davidson & Grannum, with a former PaineWebber/UBS colleague. She joined Drinker in January 2016.
