On October 27, 2021, at 12:00 noon EDT, the Commercial and Regulatory Law Committee hosted a webinar, “CFPB Mortgage Servicing Regulations and Their Effects on Bankruptcy: An Update.” The panelists discussed the background and scope of the latest mortgage-servicing regulations promulgated by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), and how they impact your day-to-day bankruptcy practice. Diane Bettino, a partner at Reed Smith LLP in Princeton, N.J., moderated the panel. She is a managing partner and serves as a co-leader of the firm’s Financial Services Litigation team. She also is a member of the firm’s Financial Industry Group, concentrating her practice in complex state and federal financial services litigation, including residential mortgage lending, credit cards, auto finance, insurance products and equipment finance. She has defended such consumer-based claims in class actions, mass actions, government investigations and single consumer claims.
The panelists were Edward Boltz, a managing partner at the Law Offices of John T. Orcutt, P.C. in Durham, N.C.; Paul Hammer, senior counsel at Barron & Newburger, P.C. in Houston; and Jon Lieberman, a partner at Sottile and Barile LLC in Loveland, Ohio.
Mr. Boltz has represented clients in not only chapters 7 and 13, but also in related consumer rights litigation, including fighting abusive mortgage practices. He served as the president of the National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys (NACBA) from 2013-16 and remains on its board of directors, and he co-chairs its Legislative Committee. Mr. Boltz was a commissioner on ABI’s Consumer Bankruptcy Commission from 2017-19. He also served on the Bankruptcy Council for the North Carolina Bar Association, where he co-chaired the committee that created a Mortgage Modification Program for the North Carolina bankruptcy courts.
Mr. Hammer manages his firm’s Houston office and currently serves as ABI’s Commercial and Regulatory Law Committee’s Membership Relations Director. He has 15 years of experience representing virtually every type of constituency in an insolvency proceeding, including debtors, creditors’ committees, trustees, insurers and equityholders. Mr. Hammer is licensed in Texas, Louisiana and Puerto Rico. His experience includes stints with top national firms, two federal judicial clerkships, and acting as outside general counsel to an international energy company.
Mr. Lieberman is Special Projects Leader for ABI’s Commercial and Regulatory Law Committee. Besides representing mortgage lenders and servicers for almost three decades in bankruptcy courts throughout the country, he is former co-chair of ABI’s Consumer Bankruptcy and Legislation Committees, and a former Steering Committee member of ABI’s “40 Under 40.” Program. He currently serves as an associate editor of the ABI Journal, on the editorial board of the Journal of the Federal Bar Association, as co-chair of Outreach for ABI’s Veterans and Servicemembers Affairs Task Force, and on the Advisory Committee for ABI’s 2021 Consumer Practice Extravaganza, an online conference just for consumer practitioners being held Nov. 1-12.
We hope that you were able to join us for this informative webinar. Stay tuned to this newsletter for announcements on future webinars.