Ballard Spahr Forms Collection Documentation Task Force

Companies have to deal with a rapidly developing spread of documentation-related scrutiny, from the mortgage foreclosure process to the collection of credit card, student loan, and other types of consumer debts. How can they handle that? 

The Ballard Spahr law firm has come up with an interesting solution: it has created a Collection Documentation Task Force composed of lawyers from the firm’s Consumer Financial Services Group. The group combines litigators with experience defending mortgage lenders in documentation-related lawsuits nationwide and regulatory lawyers with knowledge of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency’s national bank foreclosure review process.

“We have already begun to see, and defend against, lawsuits attacking collection documentation used by non-mortgage lenders, and there is growing interest by governmental agencies and consumer advocacy groups in this issue,” said Task Force Chair Christopher J. Willis, a litigation partner in the firm’s Atlanta office.

Joining Willis on the task force are Ballard Spahr attorneys Martin C. Bryce, Jr., Burt M. Rublin, Michael S. Waldron, Mercedes K. Tunstall, Stefanie H. Jackman, and Daniel J.T. McKenna.

One step the group will take is explained by Alan S. Kaplinsky, the head of Ballard Spahr’s Consumer Financial Services Group: “[B]ecause the examination of documentation relating to non-mortgage collections is just beginning, we believe that much of the risk can be mitigated and controlled by conducting risk assessments with our clients to identify and resolve any issues with collection documentation.”