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Stephen leads the firm’s Regulatory Investigations, Strategy + Enforcement (RISE) Practice Group. He focuses his practice on enforcement actions, investigations, and litigation. Stephen primarily represents clients engaging with, or being investigated by, state attorneys general and other state or local governmental enforcement bodies, including the CFPB and FTC, as well as clients involved with litigation, with a particular focus on heavily regulated industries. He also has experience advising clients on data and privacy issues, including handling complex investigations into data incidents by state attorneys general other state and federal regulators. Additionally, Stephen provides strategic counsel to Troutman Pepper’s Strategies clients who need assistance with public policy, advocacy, and government relations strategies.

Like a bevy of other jurisdictions, the District of Columbia has established a “borrower’s bill of rights” which creates minimum standards for timely processing, correction of errors, and communication for servicers of federal student loans. 

In response to this state-level action, the U.S. Department of Education recently argued that all such regulations are

Largely rejecting the Trump Administration’s proposals regarding student lending championed by Betsy DeVos, Secretary of the Department of Education, the $1.3 trillion budget deal announced by Congressional negotiators on March 21 includes a number of provisions that may aid students:

  • The budget increases the Pell Grant award by $175 per student, bringing maximum Pell Grants

Last month, the North American Reliability Corporation (“NERC”) approved a settlement agreement between the Western Electric Coordinating Council (“WECC”) and an unnamed power company that imposed a penalty of $2.7 million on the power company for improper cybersecurity oversight after the company inadvertently allowed critical cyber security data to be exposed online for 70 days.

Introduced in the House of Representatives on December 7, 2017, by Rep. Thomas A. Garret, Jr. (R-Va.), the Student Security Act of 2017 aims to provide loan forgiveness to borrowers of federal student loans who agree to delay eligibility to collect Social Security benefits. In its current form, the Act would grant $550 in student

In early March, the Department of Education, led by Secretary Elisabeth Dee DeVos, began informing some former students at campuses once owned by the now-defunct Corinthian Colleges, Inc. that it will forgive only fifty percent or less of their federal student loans. In fact, DeVos had announced her intent to adopt such a plan, a

In general, the federal government provides student loans to qualified Americans regardless of their credit history. To facilitate repayment and avoid borrower default, it offers numerous programs, including income-based repayment schemes and, for now, loan forgiveness for public service. Naturally, once a borrower defaults, the government enjoys an extraordinary range of powers for securing

On March 15, Governor Jay Inslee of Washington signed the Washington Student Education Loan Bill of Rights. This law had been in the works since 2017 when a report, released by Attorney General Bob Ferguson in December, documented significant disparities across gender, income, age, and race in student loan borrowing and highlighted a handful

A companion to a bill sponsored by Rep. Robert Scott (D-Va.), America’s College Promise Act, or “ACPA”, introduced in the United States Senate on March 1, strives to minimize the financial hurdles that have induced an extraordinary reliance on private and federal student loans by over 44 million Americans. This previously-introduced bill currently boasts

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals recently held that an agreement between a district attorney and private law firms to litigate actions in the name of the district attorney based on a contingency fee agreement does not violate due process.

The decision came after Eric Heryford, District Attorney for Trinity County, California, filed a suit

Nearly a decade after the financial crisis of 2007-08, the Senate recently advanced the most significant overhaul of the DoddFrank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, signed into federal law by President Barack H. Obama on July 21, 2010. Specifically, on March 14, 2018, the Senate passed the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief,