For those in the annuity business, particularly those who work in structured settlement annuities or work with lawyers on their pension plans, this comes as welcome news but no surprise as to the value of the annuity concept to lock in guaranteed income investors can't outlive, out spend or dissipate.

As we all know, American's have been in the thrall of the real estate and investment business for the last 25 years and believed numbers tossed around that 11% annual returns can be expected on equities long term or that no one ever lost money in real estate. As the last decade has shown, plenty of people can and do lose money in real estate and that while long term yields on equities over 50 years are quite predictable, 5 and 10 year periods can go negative much to the dismay of investors and advisers alike.

Listen in to this weeks edition of Speaking of Settlements to learn a bit more about the Putnam retirement Summit, the Obama administrations policy shift to encourage annuities and to get a handle on this sea change in how annuity contracts are perceived and used. As has been predicted by LBN commentator Mark Wahlstrom for over 18 months now; "we appear poised to enter a golden age in the use of and appreciation for annuities for the vast majority of Americans and the sooner advisers, lawyers and others get a handle on this the quicker these amazing and fundamentally sound products will gain wider use and acceptance."

Scott Rothstein

Great, just what we needed as a profession, more traffic and news with our trade name dragged into what looks to be a growing fraud in which the term Structured Settlements was used to lull investors into thinking this scam had the legitimacy and security offered by structured settlements.

You can read the entire FBI press release by clicking here.

What is also distressing is that what looked to be a $100 million scam and limited to a few cases is now being announced by the FBI as potentially exceeding $1 billion in losses and involving a network of individuals who were working with Scott Rothstein.

The Legal Broadcast Network will be following this story closely over the next few week but as a special guest we had Civil Action Attorney Jan Schlichtmann join us today to discuss from the perspective of a trial lawyer the distressing trend of lawyers being implicated in not just frauds, but in the betrayal of their clients and associates all in the name of greed. Watch today's extended interview with Jan Schlichtmann on Voices of the Law and tune in next week as we continue to bring in more commentators and news on this scam, as well as shine light on the "cash now" industry that seems to have been the model for how this program was designed.

Watch Attorney Jan Schlichtmann discuss the Scott Rothstein fraud and the issues confronting trial lawyers nationally regarding the proliferation of "cash now schemes" that are being offered to lawyers, plaintiffs and investors with little or no regulation or oversight.

Structured settlement experts Mark Wahlstrom and John Darer discuss the recent headlines of Attorney Scott Rothstein who appears to be at the center of another major financial fraud.

The reason we are addressing this is that the press has unfortunately started to use the term Structured Settlements to describe the legal finance and loan operation that was being run as an apparent Ponzi scheme by Rothstein. To mix up this term with what was being done to plaintiffs and investors is a huge mistake and one that is discussed by two of the structuredsettlement professions leading commentators.