Defending Consumer Protection Actions on Multiple Fronts: Coordinating Joint CFPB and State AG Investigations and Settlements

Donald C. Lampe is a partner in the Financial Services Group in the Washington D.C. office of Morrison & Foerster.

Mr. Lampe represents banks, mortgage companies, insurance underwriters and agents and other financial services providers in a variety of financial services and bank regulatory matters. He devotes significant time to counseling innovative financial services companies bringing products and services to market through technology-driven platforms (FinTech). He regularly counsels consumer creditors, loan servicers, collection agencies and secondary market participants on consumer financial services laws and regulations, including the Dodd-Frank Act. He represents a range of financial services clients in high-stakes government investigations and enforcement proceedings before state and federal agencies, such as the CFPB, HUD, FTC, DOJ, FDIC and NYFS, involving issues of lending, servicing, licensing, governance and compliance. He devotes a significant part of his practice to representing major national business process outsourcing firms and technology vendors to the financial services industry.

Mr. Lampe has been recognized by Legal 500 US 2017 in the area of Financial Services: Regulatory and by Chambers USA 2017 in the area of Financial Services Regulation: Consumer Finance (Compliance). He has been recognized by Best Lawyers in America from 2003-2018 and was named a Super Lawyer for Banking Law by Law & Politics from 2006-2014. Mr. Lampe is currently a fellow of the American College of Consumer Financial Services Lawyers. He also serves on the Governing Committee of The Conference on Consumer Finance Law and the Board of Advisors of the UNC School of Law Center for Banking and Finance. Mr. Lampe previously served as the chair of the American Bar Association’s Consumer Financial Services Committee.

Mr. Lampe received his S.B. degree from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he graduated Phi Beta Kappa, and his J.D. degree from Duke University School of Law, where he was the Administrative Law Editor of the Duke Law Journal and a member of the Dean’s Advisory Council.

Todd E. Leatherman is a special attorney in the Kentucky Attorney General’s Office where he has worked since 1996. Leatherman served as executive director of the Consumer Protection Office from 1996-2016 and continues to work in that division. He serves as Attorney General Andy Beshear’s representative on a number of multistate executive committees involving for-profit schools.

Leatherman served on the Executive Committee of the EDMC multistate. He represented Kentucky in the Daymar College case which secured more than $12.4 million in financial redress for Kentucky consumers and the appointment of a compliance monitor for a period of two years. He also represents the Commonwealth in other ongoing lawsuits and investigations involving for-profit schools regarding advertising and other issues.

Leatherman earned his B.A in History from the University of Colorado at Boulder in 1985 and received his J.D. from the University of Kentucky College of Law in 1988.

Brian DeHaan is an Assistant Attorney General at the Oregon Department of Justice.

Bernard Eskadari is a deputy attorney general in the Consumer Law Section of the California Attorney General’s Office. He prosecutes both corporations and individuals for consumer-protection violations of state and national significance. Most recently, he is part of the prosecution team that sued JPMorgan Chase & Co. and others for rampant credit-card debtcollection abuses against tens of thousands of California consumers. That enforcement action is ongoing.

Prior to the Attorney General’s Office, Mr. Eskandari was an associate at Munger, Tolles & Olson LLP, and before that he clerked for the Honorable R. Guy Cole, Jr., on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.

Mr. Eskandari received his JD from the University of Michigan and holds degrees from U.C.L.A. and U.C. Berkeley.