LaSalle St. Securities, L.L.C. — patent litigation as defendant

LaSalle St. Securities, L.L.C. is a privately held independent broker-dealer headquartered at 940 N. Industrial Drive, Elmhurst, Illinois (western Chicago suburbs). It was founded in 1974, when current president John W. McDermott acquired a predecessor firm; the RIA arm was formed in the 1990s. The firm is not publicly traded. It is management- and advisor-owned: a 2023 program sold a "significant percentage" of equity to affiliated advisors, and it remains largely controlled by McDermott, Mark Contey and CFO Daniel Schlesser. SEC/FINRA filings describe it as a Delaware LLC organized in 1999. Size estimates vary by source and should be treated cautiously: PitchBook reports roughly 128 employees (2019), while third-party estimate sites range from about 84 to 335 employees and from ~$17.6M to ~$147M in revenue. Company statements cite about 325–330 affiliated advisors and roughly $11–14 billion in client assets.

Operations. LaSalle St. is a wealth-management family of firms. Its core entity, LaSalle St. Securities, is an independent broker-dealer offering individual securities, options, mutual funds, IPOs/syndicate offerings, wrap programs and insurance products, clearing through National Financial Services LLC. Affiliates include LaSalle St. Investment Advisors, LLC (an SEC-registered RIA) and a second advisory platform; the group markets brokerage, advisory, investment and insurance services to registered representatives and RIAs. It is a FINRA/SIPC member and is registered in all 50 states.

Litigation posture. The tracked record shows one case, in which LaSalle St. is the defendant: Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. v. LaSalle St. Securities, L.L.C., filed 2026-01-22 in the Northern District of Illinois. There are no plaintiff-side patent cases. This is the classic operating-company-defending profile: a financial-services firm accused of infringement, not an entity asserting patents.

Context. Cedar Lane Technologies is widely characterized as a Canadian-based non-practicing entity that acquired portfolios originating with Intellectual Ventures/AVInnov, and it has filed hundreds of suits — typically in the Western and Eastern Districts of Texas and Delaware — against technology vendors and, in recent waves, financial institutions. The LaSalle St. case was filed in N.D. Ill. rather than a Texas venue. No merits determination is reflected in the data.