Eight students from Brooklyn Law School, dressed in dark suits, arranged themselves on a recent Tuesday night in high-backed leather chairs around a sleek conference table in the 34th floor headquarters of Labaton Sucharow in New York.

Labaton partners Joel Bernstein and Mark Arisohn, who double as directors of the law school's Securities Arbitration Clinic, peppered them with questions about the benefits and drawbacks of arbitrating securities cases. Why, for example, do securities brokers prefer to arbitrate?

The students theorized that arbitration is cheaper and more secretive than litigation. Bernstein interjected: “Brokers are scared out of their wits by juries.”