Disgrunted Merrill clients find friends at local firm. (Wall Street West).

IT was just a two-inch by three-inch ad buried deep inside the Los Angeles Times, but it represents a financial torpedo aimed at the securities industry.

The tombstone reads in part, "If you have lost money purchasing technology or Internet securities between 1999 and 2000 at Merrill Lynch..." and ended by soliciting a phone call to the law offices of Aidikoff & Uhl in Beverly Hills.

Phil Aidikoff, founder and nameplate partner at the firm, said response to the ad has been "tremendous."

Merrill Lynch, of course, faces prosecution by New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, who recently released e-mails in which Merrill analysts privately dismissed certain stocks as "crap," while simultaneously touting them to the public.

"We knew for a long time these conflicts (between analyst's true and stated opinions) existed ... but until Mr. Spitzer released the emails, we never had the proof," Aidikoff said.

Now, investors who used Merrill want retribution from their former broker, creating a surge in business at the four-member Aidikoff & Uhl. "We are adding staff, looking to hire more lawyers," he said.

Under federal law, disputes between customers and brokerages are brought into binding arbitration, usually under the aegis of the National Association of Securities Dealers. And the $100 million or so that Merrill is expected to fork over as part of the Spitzer settlement could be peanuts next to arbitration decisions and settlements with burned investors.

Spitzer has also vowed to scour other brokerages' e-mails. "It is just a matter of time before some more shoes -- and that is shoes, plural -- drop," said Aidikoff, who also is president of the Public Investors Arbitration Bar Association.

Few investors complained when stocks were rising through much of the 1990s, Aidikoff said. But they got antsy when they started to lose money, and when they read in the newspapers that they were duped, they head for the nearest lawyer. "Now, we are really, really busy," Aidikoff said.

Contributing columnist Benjamin Mark Cole writes about the local investment community for the Los Angeles Business Journal. He can be reached at [e-mail].