Mr. Zier was raised in the Houston metropolitan area and is a native Texan. He attended Texas State University in San Marcos where he graduated in three years with a Bachelor of Business Administration degree in Economics, magna cum laude. While at Texas State University, Mr. Zier received the Academic Excellence Award and was inducted into the Beta Gamma Sigma honor society.
After graduating from Texas State University, Mr. Zier attended South Texas College of Law in Houston where he received the Dean’s Merit Scholarship and was on the Dean’s List. While in law school, Mr. Zier studied abroad at Doshisha University in Kyoto, Japan and did an internship at the headquarters of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in Washington, DC. Mr. Zier received his Doctor of Jurisprudence degree from South Texas College of Law and became a licensed attorney in 2000.
Mr. Zier started his career in Houston where he handled various types of civil litigation matters. He then went to Tokyo for two years to work at Mitsui, Yasuda, Wani & Maeda. While in Tokyo, Mr. Zier reported to Akihiro Wani and had a broad based transactional practice that included international transactions, general corporate matters, derivatives, and securities, among others.
In 2003, Mr. Zier joined the headquarters of the Texas State Securities Board as an enforcement attorney. While at the Securities Board, Mr. Zier investigated individuals and entities to prevent and detect securities fraud and other white collar crimes such as theft, embezzlement, misapplication of fiduciary property, forgery, money laundering, securing execution of a document by deception, mail fraud, wire fraud, bank fraud, and interstate transportation of stolen property. Mr. Zier has experience working closely with federal, state, and local law enforcement, government agencies, and self-regulatory organizations such as the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) formerly known as the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD), Department of Justice (DOJ), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Internal Revenue Service (IRS), Postal Inspectors, Attorney General (AG), Assistant U.S. Attorneys (AUSA), District Attorneys (DA), court appointed receivers, and securities regulators in other states and countries.
As a result of his experience, Mr. Zier has extensive contacts in Texas, Japan, and among law enforcement agencies and regulators.
Membership and Professional Affiliations
American Bar Association
State Bar of Texas
Business Law Section, State Bar of Texas
Consumer and Commercial Law Section, State Bar of Texas
Corporate Counsel Section, State Bar of Texas
Criminal Justice Section, State Bar of Texas
Family Law Section, State Bar of Texas
International Law Section, State Bar of Texas
Litigation Section, State Bar of Texas
Litigation Section, Securities Litigation Committee, American Bar Association
Real Estate, Probate, and Trust Section, State Bar of Texas
Education
South Texas College of Law - Houston, Texas
JD, 2000; Admitted in Texas, 2000
Dean’s Merit Scholarship; Dean’s List
Doshisha University - Kyoto, Japan
Semester Abroad, International and Comparative Law, Summer 1998
Texas State University - San Marcos, Texas
BBA in Economics, magna cum laude, 1997
Academic Excellence Award; Beta Gamma Sigma
Mr. Zier has been admitted to practice law in Texas since 2000.
Presentations and Publications
Guest Speaker, courses entitled Fraud Examination for accounting and MBA students at the University of Texas at Austin. Summer 2006 and Summer 2007 sessions.
Regular speaker at investor education seminars
Editorial Board of Capital Asia magazine while with Mitsui, Yasuda, Wani & Maeda
