David J. Kaminski heads our Financial Services defense group. Mr. Kaminski is a frequent speaker at professional meetings, and he has substantial experience with nearly every aspect of claims arising in the financial services area. He also knows consumers’ lawyers across the country, and for that reason clients frequently consult us for early evaluations and forecasts about new cases, based on our broad and unique knowledge of opposing lawyers.
We represent banks and other lenders, debt buyers, debt servicers, debt collectors, and debt insurers in cases which allege violations of federal and state consumer-protection-laws. We also represent non-financial-services companies whose marketing or customer-service efforts are challenged under consumer-protection-laws.
We have represented defendants in more than 200 class actions, and at clients’ request, we have been lead defense counsel in several Multi-District-Litigation cases.
In our financial services (and marketing) defense practice, most cases allege violations of federal consumer-protection-laws and are filed in United States District Courts. Our lawyers are very knowledgeable about those laws, which include the Electronic Funds Transfer Act (EFTA), the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA), the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), and the Truth in Lending Act and its Regulation Z (TILA). We have represented companies in hundreds of individual cases and class actions which alleged violations of those laws, in federal courts in Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Washington, and West Virginia.
We have defended class actions in more than half of those states. We are also very knowledgeable about federal procedure in district courts and in United States Courts of Appeal, where our lawyers are admitted in the Seventh, Ninth, and Tenth Circuits.
We have also defended hundreds of Financial Services cases which allege common law claims such as breach of lending contracts and related claims for breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing, defamation, fraud, identity theft, invasion of privacy, intentional infliction of emotional distress, intentional misrepresentation, negligence, negligent infliction of emotional distress, and negligent misrepresentation.
We frequently defend claims and cases which allege violations of California consumer-protection-statutes, including the Automobile Sales Financing Act (Civil Code sections 2981 et seq., which restricts rights to re-possess vehicles or recover deficiency judgments), Confidentiality of Medical Information Act (Civil Code sections 56 et seq.), Consumer Credit Reporting Agencies Act (Civil Code sections 1785 et seq., which provides broader rights to consumers than the FCRA), Fair Debt Buying Practices Act (Civil Code sections 1788.50 et seq., the nation’s first laws which require debt buyers to thoroughly document purchased debts), Invasion of Privacy Act (Penal Code sections 630 et seq., which imposes statutory damages for recording telephone calls without 2-party consent), Rosenthal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (Civil Code sections 1788 et seq., which unlike the FDCPA, imposes FDCPA-liabilities on creditors and lenders), and the Unfair Business Practices Act (Business & Professions Code sections 17200 et seq., which is often cited in civil actions filed by the Attorney General of California and by county District Attorneys).