A Career Option Clear of Brokerages : Regulators: Some find that high-paying jobs with investment houses are not their cup of tea.

Do securities regulators have any career option besides going to work for the brokerage business?

David E. Shellenberger, a former senior enforcement attorney with the New York Stock Exchange, founded a solo practice in Boston representing mainly small investors who claimed to have been victimized by large investment houses.

“I started the firm because I needed work that had a moral basis to it, and I wanted to have an impact on educating investors,” Shellenberger says. “I like to be on the right side.”

In recent years, Shellenberger has won some large judgments and settlements for investors.

In 1991, he obtained $420,000 from Prudential Securities, including punitive damages and attorney’s fees, in an arbitration case brought on behalf of a retired Latin teacher who claimed her broker made excessive trades in her account to generate fees. Last year, Shellenberger collected a total of more than $1 million in arbitration awards and settlements.

But, he acknowledges, “it wasn’t necessarily as easy a path as it would have been if I represented the (brokerage) industry. . . . I had to start from scratch.” He notes that defense lawyers get fees whether they win or not, while investors’ lawyers generally get fees based on a percentage of the award or settlement, if they are able to obtain one.

The revolving door did not always swing so rapidly. From the time the SEC was created in 1934 through the 1950s, lawyers tended to remain with the agency in what was viewed as a prestigious service. Today, many regulators who stay at their jobs end up being looked down on by their opponents as people who didn’t measure up to the private bar’s standards.

John Perkins, Missouri’s securities commissioner for 16 years, says he has turned down job offers to stay in public service.

“Government is never going to pay what some law firm on Wall Street is going to pay,” Perkins says. “I’m not going to criticize someone for saying, ‘I’ve got three kids to send to college and the state of Missouri just isn’t paying me enough to do that.’ But I hope never to be in that position. The reason I do what I do is that I believe that it’s right.”