Fifteen people, including a lawyer who worked at several major law firms, pleaded not guilty on Monday to US charges that they participated in a decade-long scheme in which attorneys fed an insider trading ring tips about nearly 30 underway mergers.

Nicolo Nourafchan, who had worked at the law firms Sidley Austin, Latham & Watkins and Goodwin Procter, was among the defendants who appeared in federal court in Boston to enter pleas to securities fraud and other charges.

Thirty people in total have been charged with participating in the decade-long scheme, which prosecutors say netted tens of millions of dollars and was orchestrated by Nourafchan and personal injury attorney ​Robert Yadgarov.

Yadgarov also entered a not guilty plea, along with Nourafchan’s brother Lorenzo, the founder of a fractional CFO and accounting firm. He is paying Nicolo Nourafchan’s attorney fees under an arrangement a judge warned risked creating a potential conflict of interest.

“You may have different interests as this goes on,” US Magistrate Judge Judith Dein said.

Martin Weinberg, a lawyer for Nicolo Nourafchan, in a statement said his client “asserted his innocence to each........

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