Consumer Protection Law..What Every Practitioner Needs to Know!

The Consumer Protection Law Committee presents

Significant Changes in

Consumer Protection Law

Thursday, June 21, 2012

2:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.

Room: Sanibel 1-3 ““ Gaylord Palm Hotel, Orlando, FL

Maximum credit 3.5 hours CLER/2 Certification

3.5 hours general CLER; 2 hours Business Litigation; 1 Real Estate

Course No. 84791

The last year brought sweeping changes for companies and consumers in a multitude

of laws and regulations. This seminar will give attendees important information about

current trends and changes in consumer protection laws and how they could affect their

practices. The program will review:

“¢ New regulations and other statutory dictates under the Dodd-Frank Act and the

creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

“¢ New and emerging issues in Florida’s Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act

“¢ New and emerging issues in the foreclosure crisis

“¢ Changes to the Bankruptcy Code

 

Issues will be covered from both the national and the Florida-specific perspective.

Consumer Protection Law Committee members will engage with national and state

level expert guests over the panoply of issues that affect consumers and the attorneys

involved in consumer litigation.

 

Among the special guests are:

 

“¢ Deepak Gupta, senior counsel for enforcement strategy at the Consumer Financial

Protection Bureau

 

“¢ Former Mississippi Supreme Court Justice Oliver E. Diaz, who served as an

inspiration for John Grisham’s novel ” The Appeal”

 

“¢ Florida Sen. Mike Fasano, R-New Port Richey

 

The format for ” Significant Changes in Consumer Protection Law” is:

Overview of program and review of materials by CPLC

member Janet Varnell 15 minutes

 

Presentation by Deepak Gupta, with introduction by CPLC

member Victoria Butler, Florida Attorney General’s Office 45 minutes

5 Minute Break

Panel discussion on the changes in foreclosure, bankruptcy,

arbitration and the Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practice

Act by CPLC members Lynn Drysdale, Margery Golant

and John Yanchunis

45 minutes

 

Panel will add Sen. Mike Fasano to discuss bills filed in the

recent legislative session relating to potential changes to

the foreclosure process and how to effectively track and

influence legislation

30 minutes

5 Minute Break

Panel headed by former Mississippi State Supreme Court

Justice Oliver E. Diaz about the changing nature of corporate

influence on the judicial process

35 minutes

 

Bios of the speakers:

OLIVER E. DIAZ JR. is a former presiding justice on the Mississippi

Supreme Court. He was appointed to the court in 2000 and defeated in

the 2008 election. During his tenure as a judge, Diaz was indicted and

cleared of federal bribery and tax evasion charges. His tribulations were

fictionalized in John Grisham’s book, ” The Appeal” ““ which recounted a

Gulf Coast attorney being politically targeted ““ and are included in the

documentary film ” Hot Coffee,” first screened at the Sundance Film Festival

and then aired on HBO in 2011. The film’s website notes: ” When big

business interests couldn’t beat Justice Oliver Diaz in his re-election to

the Mississippi Supreme Court, despite millions of dollars spent on advertising,

they found a way to have him criminally prosecuted on false charges, tainting his reputation

and causing political hardship for years to come.”

 

A September 2007 article in Harper’s Magazine reported: ” After reviewing the Diaz case . . . it is

clear that no independent prosecutor would ever have brought these charges, that the prosecution

was . . . driven by political appointees in Washington working together with Diaz’s political

opponents in Mississippi, and that the prosecutions served a manifestly partisan, and inherently

corrupt, political agenda.”

 

Currently Diaz has a law practice in Jackson, Miss., focusing on personal injury, white collar

criminal defense, appellate litigation and consulting and lobbying.

 

Diaz served in the Mississippi House of Representatives (representing Biloxi and D’Iberville) from

1988 to 1994. He was a subcommittee chairman for the Insurance Committee and for the Judiciary

Committee. He was on the Ways and Means Committee and was secretary for the Constitution

Committee.

 

He also served as city attorney for the City of D’Iberville for four years. Diaz was elected to the

Mississippi Court of Appeals in November 1994 and served in that position until March 2000, at

which time he was appointed to the Mississippi Supreme Court. In 2000, he was elected to the

Supreme Court for an eight-year term.

 

Diaz received a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of South Alabama in 1982 and his

J.D. from the University of Mississippi School of Law in 1985.

The Consumer Protection Law Committee presents

 

MIKE FASANO is a Republican member of the Florida Senate, representing

the 11th District since 2003. Previously he was a member of the Florida

House of Representatives from 1994 through 2002. Within the House,

he was a majority whip from 1996 to 1998, the majority floor leader from

1998 to 2000 and the House Majority Leader from 2000 to 2001.

Sen. Fasano was first elected to the Florida Senate in November 2002

and consequently re-elected in 2004 and 2008. From 2008 through 2010,

he served as president pro tempore of the Florida Senate.

 

He represents Senate District 11, which encompasses western parts of

Citrus, Hernando and Pasco counties and northern Pinellas County. Fasano

served as majority whip under the leadership of Senate Majority Leader Dan Webster.

His other Senate committee memberships have included: Communications and Public Utilities;

Fiscal Policy and Calendar; Health Regulation; Judiciary; Regulated Industries; Rules; and the

Joint Legislative Budget Commission. For several years, Sen. Fasano chaired the Transportation

and Economic Development Appropriations Committee, where he oversaw a budget of approximately

$12 billion.

 

Fasano is associate vice president for investments, Morgan Stanley; and director of Community

and Legal Affairs at Florida Hospital in Zephyrhills.

Born in Long Island, NY, Fasano and his family moved to Florida in 1971.

 

DEEPAK GUPTA is senior counsel for Enforcement Strategy at the Consumer

Financial Protection Bureau, a new federal agency. He is also

an adjunct professor of law at the law schools of both Georgetown and

American universities. From 2004 to 2011, Gupta was an attorney at

Public Citizen Litigation Group, where his practice encompassed consumer

protection, constitutional law and Supreme Court and appellate

litigation. Gupta has briefed and argued cases on a wide range of issues

before the U.S. Supreme Court, federal appellate and district courts nationwide,

and the state supreme courts of Alaska, Arkansas, Connecticut,

Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey and Ohio. Most recently, Gupta argued

before the U.S. Supreme Court in AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion (2011),

a landmark case concerning whether corporations may use arbitration clauses in consumer and

employment contracts to ban class actions. He also served as counsel in two other major arbitration

cases in the Supreme Court, Rent-A-Center v. Jackson (2010) and Stolt-Nielsen v. Animalfeeds

(2010).

 

At Public Citizen, Gupta founded and directed the organization’s Consumer Justice Project, which

collaborated with advocates nationwide on cases with the potential to broadly affect consumers’

rights. Before that, he served as the Alan Morrison Supreme Court Project Fellow, coordinating

assistance to litigants in public interest cases before the U.S. Supreme Court.

In addition to his litigation work, Gupta has engaged in legislative and policy advocacy on consumer

issues, appeared on TV and radio programs (including ABC’s ” World News” and ” Good

Morning America” CNN’s ” Lou Dobbs Tonight,” NPR’s ” Morning Edition” and ” All Things Considered,”

and FOX News), and has been quoted by publications including the New York Times,

Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal and USA Today. Gupta frequently

speaks at national legal conferences and law schools and is the co-founder (along with Professor

Jeff Sovern) of the Consumer Law and Policy Blog.

 

Consumer Protection Law Committee members:

VICTORIA BUTLER, immediate past chair of the Consumer Protection Law Committee, has

practiced consumer protection law for more than 13 years with the Office of the Florida Attorney

General. She is bureau chief in the Tampa office of the Economic Crimes Division. Before her

employment with the Attorney General’s Office, Butler was a federal district court law clerk and

deputy court counsel to the state circuit court.

LYNN DRYSDALE, chair of the Consumer Protection Law Committee, is a consumer protection

attorney who has been with Jacksonville Area Legal Aid, Inc. for more than 20 years. Drysdale is

co-chair of the Board of the National Association of Consumer Advocates and has been a contributing

writer for the National Consumer Law Center practice manuals. She has twice been a presenter

at Federal Trade Commission Workshops in Washington, D.C., relating to debt collection

and has testified before the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Development Committee twice

relating to lending practices affecting military service members and their families. She has also

testified before the Federal Reserve Board regarding the Home Ownership Equity Protection Act.

Drysdale represents consumers in individual and class action cases and engages in legislative

advocacy relating to debt collection, pay day loans, spot delivery motor vehicle sales, military

pension loans and other consumer issues. She teaches foreclosure defense litigation around the

state and is an adjunct consumer law professor at the University of Florida, Levin College of Law,

of which she is a graduate.

MARGERY E. GOLANT, co-chair of the Consumer Protection Law Committee, practices with Golant

& Golant, P.A., in Boca Raton. She is a real estate attorney and litigator with more than 20

years of experience. She represents consumers in financial services litigation in defense of foreclosure

and focuses on issues of securitization and structured finance issues. Golant previously

worked at one of the largest subprime mortgage servicers in the United States and was a district

court judge in Pennsylvania.

 

JANET VARNELL, co-chair of the Consumer Protection Law Committee, is a partner at Varnell

& Warwick, P.A., in The Villages. She represents consumers and businesses in class actions and

other complex litigation against some of the largest titans of industry throughout the country.

Varnell is a frequent speaker for a host of organizations on consumer law topics. She serves on

the board of Public Justice, the nation’s preeminent public interest law firm, and is the former

co-chair of the National Association of Consumer Advocates.

 

JOHN A. YANCHUNIS, of Morgan and Morgan in Tampa, restricts his practice to consumer and

class action litigation. Yanchunis has received an ” AV” rating from Martindale Hubbell. He holds

a Bachelor of Arts undergraduate degree from the University of Florida. He graduated in 1980

from South Texas College of Law with his J.D. degree, magna cum laude. He is a member of

The Florida Bar and The Texas Bar. Yanchunis has been a member of Board of Governors of The

Florida Bar, and a member of the boards of The Florida Board of Bar Examiners and The Florida

Bar Foundation.

 

JAMES YOUNG is special counsel to the Florida Attorney General, advising the administration on

matters of national scope ranging from civil rights to complex multi-state litigation. He formerly

served as the Economic Crimes bureau chief for the Attorney General’s Jacksonville office. Young

received his law degree from Nova Southeastern University in 1997. Before joining the AG’s office,

he spent four years as associate corporate counsel and director of Global Risk Management

for the GEO Group (Wackenhut Corrections) in Palm Beach Gardens.