The Debevoise Consumer Finance Group counsels and defends financial institutions and other industry players in one of the most fast-moving and challenging regulatory and enforcement environments in the country.
Courtney M. Dankworth
Tier 1 firm for Corporate investigations and white-collar criminal defense – Advice to corporates
Leading firm for Banking
Leading firm for Financial services litigation
—The Legal 500 US, 2025
Band 1 firm for Corporate Crime and Investigations – Nationwide.
Band 1 firm for White-Collar Crime & Government Investigations in New York.
Leading firm for Financial Services Regulation: Banking (Compliance)
Debevoise has an exceptionally strong group of attorneys who combine both legal brilliance with a sophisticated understanding of the financial service industry.
—Chambers USA, 2025
Band 1 firm for Corporate Investigations/Anti-Corruption – Global-wide
Band 1 firm in the U.S. for Corporate Crime & Investigations and Investigations & Enforcement (International & Cross-Border).
Ranked as a top-tier firm for Regulatory Investigations and Corporate Crime.
Ranked as a leading firm for Financial Crime: Corporates.
Criminal Litigation Law Firm of the Year
—Chambers USA Awards, 2024
Named “Firm of the Year” in the Business Crime Defense category
—Who’s Who Legal, 2023 & 2024
White Collar Crime/Enforcement/Investigations Firm of the Year
—Benchmark Litigation U.S. Awards 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2022
Our Consumer Finance Group works with many of the nation’s largest consumer financial services firms including depository institutions; mortgage originators and servicers; credit card issuers, payment processors and networks; auto and student lenders; and other consumer lending and servicing companies. The Group provides advice concerning the full range of consumer financial protection laws applicable to these institutions, including federal and state laws related to banking, lending and servicing and collections activities, deposit taking, credit reporting, payments, electronic delivery of financial services, unfair, deceptive or abusive acts or practices (UDAAP) and consumer privacy and data protection requirements. Our team, consisting of former senior attorneys at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), federal banking agencies, Department of Justice (DOJ) and the New York Department of Financial Services (DFS), is able to provide invaluable insights and deep knowledge of not only the laws and regulations applicable to our clients but the government entities that implement and enforce those laws.
Our Consumer Finance lawyers, many of whom have been repeatedly ranked as leading practitioners in Benchmark Litigation, Chambers USA, The Legal 500 and IFLR1000 have a depth and breadth of experience providing advice in enforcement, counseling, litigation and transactional contexts. We are thought leaders; in writings, speaking engagements and authoring comment letters on proposed regulation, we are able to provide insights and advice that help our clients stay ahead of regulatory issues. Government Investigations and Enforcement
Our Consumer Finance lawyers, many of whom have been repeatedly ranked as leading practitioners in Benchmark Litigation, Chambers USA, The Legal 500 and IFLR1000 have a depth and breadth of experience providing advice in enforcement, counseling, litigation and transactional contexts. We are thought leaders; in writings, speaking engagements and authoring comment letters on proposed regulation, we are able to provide insights and advice that help our clients stay ahead of regulatory issues.
We regularly represent consumer finance institutions in connection with matters before federal, state and local government entities. At the federal level, we help clients navigate investigations and enforcement actions by the CFPB, including responding to investigative demands, remediating consumers, and negotiating resolutions. We also assist companies in the investigations and enforcement actions before the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), Federal Reserve (FRB), Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), Federal Trade Commission (FTC), United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and DOJ. On the state and local level, we regularly represent clients under investigation by state attorneys general and state financial regulators, including the New York Attorney General and NY DFS, as well as the New York County District Attorney’s Office and other local prosecutors.
Regulatory Advice and Counseling
We regularly assist clients in the development of new products and with chartering and licensing of new financial services companies, drafting compliance policies and procedures and compliance reviews. We assist individual institutions and leading industry trade associations in many aspects of the regulatory process, including the preparation of comment letters, seeking interpretive relief and formulating regulatory and legislative strategies. We also work on a number of matters for FinTech companies, including advising on matters related to rate exportation, pre-emption and chartering.
Litigation
Debevoise has an active litigation practice in federal and state courts across the country. In the consumer financial services area, we have assisted in numerous class actions, including those throughout the country relating to the use by mortgage servicers of the Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems (MERS) and actions brought by the New York and Massachusetts Attorneys General in connection with foreclosure practices.
Transactions
Consumer banking has seen a marked increase in transactions by virtue of the changing regulatory landscape and otherwise. We counsel banks and nonbank consumer finance companies, including companies in the FinTech space, in a broad range of transactional matters, including mergers and acquisitions, public offerings, asset purchases and sales, loan purchase agreements, lending agreements, joint ventures, joint marketing agreements and servicing and outsourcing arrangements.
Our Consumer Finance lawyers work closely with our other financial institutions practice groups, including our banking, insurance, broker-dealer and investment management practices, as well as the firm’s corporate, derivatives and structured finance, private equity, tax and ERISA attorneys. This coordinated approach of strong, complementary specialties ensures that deals are structured to achieve a client’s immediate goals and also to minimize regulatory, litigation and other risks in the future.