Professional Experience

Jean assists financial institutions and businesses with navigating complex consumer financial services, fair lending, marketing, privacy and consumer reporting, and consumer protection laws. Jean is Chair of our firm’s Fair Lending Practice Group and is highly regarded for her deep knowledge of fair lending laws, spanning 50 years as a partner in our Washington, DC office, she provides strategic counsel on complex regulatory compliance issues and represents clients in government investigations, examinations, and enforcement actions before federal agencies, including the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), Federal Trade Commission (FTC), Department of Justice, and federal banking regulators.

With deep experience in consumer financial services law, Jean advises clients on:

 
Before joining Hudson Cook, Jean held key leadership roles in government. She is a former Senior Executive with the FTC, where she directed the agency’s enforcement of consumer financial services laws.  Jean next served as General Counsel of the Farm Credit Administration (FCA), an independent federal bank regulatory agency. She has testified before Congress on consumer financial services issues and is a sought-after speaker at industry conferences.

Jean is a Founding Member of the American College of Consumer Financial Services Lawyers (ACCFSL) where she recently concluded a 10-year term on its Executive Committee, including a term as President. She has held numerous leadership positions within the American Bar Association’s Business Law Section and has long served on the Governing Committee of the Conference on Consumer Finance Law. In 2020, she was appointed to the CFPB’s Task Force on Federal Consumer Financial Law, where she co-authored a 900-page report, which supported its 102 recommendations.

Jean is committed to helping businesses stay compliant in a rapidly evolving regulatory environment while mitigating risk, finding creative solutions for difficult regulatory problems, and fostering responsible innovation. Jean has often served as an expert witness, especially on credit reporting issues, drawing on her background as an enforcer of consumer financial laws for the FTC and FCA for over 20 years and her long experience helping financial service providers navigate complex regulatory issues.

Jean taught consumer transactions law for seven years as an adjunct professor at The Catholic University of America Columbus School of Law, in Washington, DC, and remains involved in legal education. When time permits, Jean enjoys travel, rowing, reading, and time with her two sisters and family. She is trying to learn Spanish and how to grow orchids.