Practice Areas

Practice Areas

Outside General Counsel: Vendors, CUSOs, and Business Transactions

Every day legal issues are often an underappreciated source of risk to credit unions, especially with respect to vendor contracts, including with technology providers and financial technology (fintech) companies, as well as due diligence.  We have worked with credit unions and credit union service organizations (CUSOs) providing legal advice, helping to negotiate and performing due diligence on hundreds of business transactions. We also have extensive experience in credit union corporate governance,CUSOs, strategic planning, enterprise risk management, unrelated business income taxation (UBIT), bankruptcy and litigation.

Compliance

We provide your credit union with compliance legal advice that is tailored specifically to how your credit union does business.  Credit unions need to comply with dozens of federal and state laws such as National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) and state credit union regulations, consumer financial protection laws, the Bank Secrecy Act, and many others that you may not have even heard of.

Unlike compliance information services, we look at the details of your credit union’s operations and give you opinions specifically tailored to the nuances of your institution’s circumstances and risk tolerance.  Many times credit unions find that they can easily reduce compliance risk and/or their regulatory burdens just by updating their policies and procedures to reflect the most up-to-date best practices in a manner tailored to how they want to do business.

Supervisory Matters: Field of Membership and Merger Applications, Examination Issues

We can help your credit union whether you want to make applications to the NCUA or your state regulator to get supervisory approvals such as expanding your Field of Membership or winning approval for a merger, or if you need assistance with other types supervisory matters such your examination.  We have worked with many different credit union regulatory agencies.

We know how these agencies operate and we know the Federal Credit Union Act and NCUA regulations forward and backward.  Supervisory applications and examinations are some of the most important times for a credit union to have legal counsel on its side that is deeply knowledgeable about credit union laws.

Regulatory Advocacy

We have extensive experience advocating before credit union supervisors and other financial regulatory agencies helping credit unions and credit union organizations improve their regulatory environments and reduce regulatory burdens.  Regulatory advocacy requires knowledge and beyond the box thinking, and many credit union laws were originally written as far back as the 1930s or before.  Successful regulatory advocacy requires legal counsel who knows how credit unions do business as well as the applicable statute, policy, regulatory history, and administrative law principles.  You need a lawyer who can determine how old laws can be interpreted for today’s financial services realities.

Our location in the Washington, DC-area puts in right in the heart of the regulatory state not far from the headquarters of the NCUA and the other federal financial regulatory agencies such as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.  Our global perspective means that we can address not only how United States credit union laws should work but also bring compelling examples from international financial regulatory standards and how credit unions are regulated in Canada, the European Union, Australia and other foreign jurisdictions.  We’ve got you covered whether you want to file public comments, better understand proposals, advocate for new ways of doing things or meet with your regulator to discuss policy issues.

Contact us today by phone at +1 (240) 685-1480 or by email  to see how we can help your credit union.