Chris Willis welcomes Troutman Pepper's newest partner Heryka Knoespel to share insights into her national litigation practice, focusing on fraud cases involving email and text message compromises.
In this episode of The Consumer Finance Podcast, host Chris Willis introduces the firm's newest partner, Heryka Knoespel. Heryka shares insights into her national litigation practice, focusing on fraud cases involving email and text message compromises. As a native Spanish speaker, she also discusses her role in regulatory compliance for Spanish-language marketing and advertising. Heryka's unique background and experience make her a valuable addition to the Troutman Pepper team. Tune in to learn more about her journey into consumer financial services law and her vision for the future.
The Consumer Finance Podcast: Introducing Heryka Knoespel: A New Partner at Troutman Pepper
Host: Chris Willis
Guest: Heryka Knoespel
Date Aired: October 31, 2024
Chris Willis:
Welcome to The Consumer Finance Podcast. I'm Chris Willis, the co-leader of Troutman Pepper's consumer financial services regulatory practice. And I'm glad you joined us for our episode today where I have the pleasure of introducing you to one of my new partners. But before we jump into that joyous occasion, let me remind you to visit and subscribe to our blogs, ConsumerFinancialServicesLawMonitor.com, and TroutmanPepperFinancialServices.com. Don't forget about our other podcasts. We have lots of them. We have the FCRA Focus all about credit reporting, The Crypto Exchange, which of course is about crypto. We have our privacy and data security podcast called Unauthorized Access, our payments podcast called Payments Pros. And finally, our newest podcast Moving the Metal, which is all about the auto finance industry. All those podcasts are available on all popular podcast platforms.
And of course, speaking of those platforms, if you like this podcast, let us know. Leave us a review on your podcast platform of choice and let us know how we're doing. And if you enjoy reading our blogs and listening to our podcasts, the best way to do it is through our handy mobile app. It's available for both iOS and Android. Just go into your app store and search for Troutman Pepper, download it, and give it a try. Now as I said, today I have the pleasure of introducing you to a brand new partner who's just joined our firm, and I'm very excited to introduce you to her. And that's Heryka Knoespel. Heryka, welcome to the podcast. Thanks for being here today.
Heryka Knoespel:
Thank you for having me, Chris. Really excited to be chatting with you.
Chris Willis:
You are such an exciting introduction to our group, and I really want to share that with our audience. Do you mind just starting off by telling the listeners a little bit about your practice? What kind of consumer financial services law do you do?
Heryka Knoespel:
I am a litigator as my primary practice. I always say that I started as a litigator and as I've been in the profession, I've kind of seen a lot of compliance issues that come up too. I'm a native Spanish speaker, so I have used my Spanish-speaking skills to kind of get a little bit into the regulatory space as our clients start to think about marketing and advertising and coming to market in Spanish. So it's really fun. I really enjoy everything that I do, but litigator by trade and doing a little bit of regulatory things, using my Spanish skills for fun and change of pace.
Chris Willis:
So what kind of litigation matters make up your docket? I mean, what sort of cases are you dealing with and where?
Heryka Knoespel:
I have a national practice, which is really exciting, I get to see trends across the US. I would say right now we're seeing a lot of fraud with the changes in AI, for example. Unfortunately, fraudsters and scammers are getting pretty good at the scams and the frauds that they're doing, and so we have a lot of fraud cases on our docket right now.
Chris Willis:
What kind of fraud are we talking about? Are these sort of checking account related fraud or what?
Heryka Knoespel:
Yes, checking account related frauds. They tend to be email compromises, for example. Text messages that folks are getting that they think might be coming from someone else, and turns out they're not. But those are the big ones. The emails and the texts. I always tell my parents, "Do not respond to any text of anyone you don't know."
Chris Willis:
I always love to hear about how people got into our industry. I've been in consumer finance since I was a law student, so I always think of it as my first love in law practice. But how about you, Heryka? How did you come to be a consumer financial services litigator?
Heryka Knoespel:
I think my story is a little bit different. As I was a little girl, my parents claimed banks for a living. I remember sitting just looking at the banks, just thinking, "This is such a cool industry." Just as a little girl, as I started growing up, I started thinking, "Well, how can I be in this industry?" I came into law practice and I started working for financial institutions. So I just think it's the coolest job, and I've always dreamed about how I could see it from a different angle as an adult. So that's kind of how I ended up here.
Chris Willis:
I agree. It's the coolest job, by the way, and I am impressed that I thought I came to consumer financial services early when I was a law student, but I can't say I even thought about it as a child. I was thinking I was going to be a paleontologist or a physicist or something. But that's a really cool story. You've talked about your practice as it exists now, and I assume given the nature of the matters that you mentioned, which are deposit account related frauds, that would mean your clients tend to be depository financial institutions. Is that right?
Heryka Knoespel:
Yes.
Chris Willis:
And so they of course are subject to a massive onslaught of these kinds of wire fraud, peer-to-peer payment fraud, all of those kinds of things, account compromise, things like that. It's good to know that you have that expertise nationally and can help with that. As I mentioned at the top of the podcast, you're a new lateral partner to our firm. You were at another law firm before, obviously an error, but now you're here with us at Troutman Pepper. So talk to the audience a little bit about why Troutman Pepper made sense to you. Why is this a good fit for you?
Heryka Knoespel:
Honestly, Chris, one of those reasons was you. I have followed a lot of folks' careers over time, and I've been really impressed with the attorneys that are at Troutman Pepper, you in particular as one person in this industry that is a giant. And so I really wanted to be a part of a law firm that was prioritizing this work and our clients. And so I'm thrilled to be here and having colleagues like you and others in our group who are just really hitting the ground running and making this top of mind every morning when we wake up, "How can we make this industry better for our clients?" So it's really a dream for me to be at Troutman Pepper, and I'm really excited to build something here with my colleagues.
Chris Willis:
Well, thank you very much, and thank you very much for saying that. I didn't realize that I had that much to do with it. I'm honored to hear you say that, and I think the team that we have here makes for a great environment, not just for you and your practice, but I think given the kind of clients that you have, it's such a great opportunity because we have so many other things that those clients may need. We don't just have consumer financial services here at Troutman Pepper. We have the whole range of anti-money laundering and IP and transactional and compliance and all these other things that a depository bank would need. And so that to me is one of the great strengths that we have, and one of the things that I'm really looking forward to working on with you in terms of being able to showcase all that we can do for your clients.
Heryka Knoespel:
Yes, absolutely. It's a full service shop here and we can really build upon each other's strengths. So it's a great team here and I'm really excited about working with everyone.
Chris Willis:
Yeah, well, we're very happy to have you too. I feel very fortunate to have you having joined us and bringing your expertise and your work here so that we can all work together and enjoy doing it too. And I think it's interesting that you're a native Spanish speaker too, because one of the great areas of regulatory pressure that I think is poised for an expansion is the area of what banks do to serve customers who have limited English proficiency, who may only speak another language well. And of course the most common non-English language spoken in the United States is Spanish of course. It's important for the audience to hear that we have a trained seasoned consumer financial services partner who knows her way around consumer financial products and services, who is a fluent native Spanish speaker. I think that'll be very handy for our clients as they, I think get increasing pressure for regulators to do more in non-English languages, which Spanish is always first on that list.
Heryka Knoespel:
Absolutely. It's definitely an area that's growing like you mentioned, and we can see a lot of need for Spanish-speaking attorneys, and Troutman is definitely going to be a leader in this space.
Chris Willis:
Yeah, thanks to you. That's another reason I'm very glad that you're here with us. I appreciate you being on the podcast today. Is there any sort of parting message you'd like to give to the industry as a whole who are listening to you now as listeners of this podcast?
Heryka Knoespel:
Absolutely. So be on high alert, fraud is increasing. If you see any new things that are coming across your desk, definitely reach out to us. We are able to advise on trends as they are evolving and developing so quickly with this kind of age that we live in with technology and fraud on the rise. So as I tell my parents, "Be on high alert and call us if anything different is coming up so that we can chat about it and find a way of minimizing risk together."
Chris Willis:
And frankly, that's a good message, not just for the in-house lawyers who are likely listening to you on this podcast, but it really suggests it would be a great idea to have that message conveyed to the business who would be in the first position to note something unusual. And I'm sure, Heryka, it would be your pleasure to join your in-house colleagues in a conversation with the business to tell them the kinds of trends that you're seeing to help them be more vigilant about it.
Heryka Knoespel:
Absolutely. We would love that.
Chris Willis:
Well, thank you very much for being on the podcast today, and thank you, of course, to our listeners for tuning in to meet Heryka. I know she's going to be a huge addition and very valuable addition to our team here at Troutman. Don't forget to visit and subscribe to our blogs, TroutmanPepperFinancialServices.com and ConsumerFinancialServicesLawMonitor.com. And while you're at it, why not visit us on the web at troutman.coma and add yourself to our Consumer financial services email list. That way we can send you copies of the alerts that we send out from time to time as well as invitations to our industry-only webinars that we also put on occasionally. And as I said at the top of the podcast, don't forget to check out our handy mobile app. Just search for Troutman Pepper in your app store and check it out. And of course, stay tuned for a great new episode of this podcast every Thursday afternoon. Thank you all for listening.
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