Jeff was inspired to a career in law as an undergraduate at Tufts University, volunteering for a new consumer protection program launched by the Attorney General of Massachusetts. After graduating from Boston University School of Law magna cum laude, Jeff began his legal career in private practice, gaining experience in civil litigation at a mid-sized law firm in Boston. He left that practice in 1983 to become an Assistant United States Attorney for the Northern District of California in San Francisco, where he prosecuted cases ranging from drug cartels to sophisticated financial fraud schemes.

After ten years as a prosecutor, Jeff learned that the one thing that financial fraud victims most cared about—recouping their losses—was the one thing that criminal prosecutions could not accomplish—regardless of how much punishment was imposed on the defrauding defendant. As a result, in 1994, he left the U.S. Attorney's Office—and returned to private practice, this time on behalf of plaintiffs, representing defrauded shareholders and consumers in class action litigation.