In this episode, Chris Willis and Michael Lacy introduce Troutman Pepper Locke's annual Year in Review and Look Ahead publication.
In this episode of The Consumer Finance Podcast, host Chris Willis and Michael Lacy, Consumer Financial Services Practice Group leader, introduce Troutman Pepper Locke's annual Year in Review and Look Ahead publication. The publication covers 17 critical areas, including the Fair Credit Reporting Act, the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, and FinTech. This concise and accessible report offers valuable insights for clients, practitioners, and regulators. Tune in to stay informed and ahead of the curve.
The Consumer Finance Podcast — Introducing the Consumer Financial Services Year in Review Series: A Look at What’s to Come
Host: Chris Willis
Guest: Michael Lacy
Date Aired: January 27, 2025
Chris Willis:
Welcome to The Consumer Finance Podcast. I'm Chris Willis, the co-leader of Troutman Pepper Locke's, consumer financial services regulatory practice. And today we're going to be giving you a preview of our year in review and look ahead publication and podcast series, which is coming to you soon. Before we do that though, let me remind you to visit and subscribe to our blogs TroutmanFinancialServices.com and ConsumerFinancialServicesLawMonitor.com. And don't forget about our other podcasts, the FCRA Focus, Crypto Exchange, Unauthorized Access, which is our privacy and data security podcast, Payments Pros and our auto finance podcast called Moving the Metal. And all those are available on all popular podcast platforms. And speaking of those podcast 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.
Now, as I said, today we're going to be talking about our annual year in review and look ahead publication, which is one of the signature things that we create as a consumer financial services practice group here at Troutman Pepper Locke. And joining me to talk about that is our practice group leader, Michael Lacy. Michael, thanks for being on the show again today.
Michael Lacy:
Great to be back, Chris.
Chris Willis:
So for those people in our audience who might not have seen our year in review and look ahead publication before, can you take just a minute to describe what is it? When somebody sits down and reads it, what will they see?
Michael Lacy:
This is our eighth edition of “A Year in Review and Look Ahead” and in short, we cover 17 areas or topics in the consumer protection space ranging from the Fair Credit Reporting Act to the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, student lending, FinTech, tribal lending, mortgage, all of the topics that we deal with day in and day out. And the point of the publication is really twofold. One is to do a high-level recap of the important developments in each of those areas over the past year, and also share with our readers a look ahead in terms of the issues, cases, and the like that we think will be important not only in 2025, but beyond then.
Chris Willis:
And the format of it, I know, we really do take account of the fact that people don't have time to read some giant long document, and so I'd love for you to talk to the audience about how we've made sure that the content is really concise and accessible.
Michael Lacy:
Yeah, a great point, Chris, that we've learned over the eight years of doing this that being dense and writing law review articles is sometimes not the best way to have our readers digest the information we're trying to provide to them. So I hope the readers will continue to see this iteration of the year in review is more concise, perhaps more high level, but perhaps most importantly, we're also using other digital mediums to allow folks to get the insight that we're providing in the written publication. And by that I mean we're rolling out various podcasts about some of these topics that are included in our year in review written work product. And we also have scheduled webinars on some of the topics as well. So you'll be able to not only get the written year-end review, but also listen to podcasts and participate in webinars that we have scheduled.
Chris Willis:
What would you say is the right audience for the year-end review and look-ahead publication? Who's it intended to be helpful to?
Michael Lacy:
Well, certainly the clients we serve day in and day out. I know a lot of our clients look forward to receiving the year-end review and use it somewhat of a desk book or a guide book and keep it handy, but also other practitioners in the space. Obviously we work a lot with colleagues around the country and those folks who are litigating some of these cases or dealing with some of these regulatory issues, and we often hear from them about our year-end review and get feedback, which we always love. So it's really anyone who operates in these consumer protection spaces, whether it be clients, whether it be other practitioners, and even regulators for that matter.
Chris Willis:
Well, and I think even within a financial services company's employees, people in legal are obviously a very important audience who I think the document would be helpful to. But I think it's also helpful for compliance professionals, risk folks, and even business leaders because it's written in a way, in ordinary language, that everybody can understand and appreciate what we're saying in it.
Michael Lacy:
I would agree, and that's one of the focuses of how we've evolved in our year in review and how we put these summaries together for non-lawyers to be able to pick it up and understand the big ticket issues that they need to be concerned about, not only from what happened over the past 12 months, but what should be on their radar on a go-forward basis.
Chris Willis:
So I think if any of our listeners download the report, they should remember that when they've got it, sharing is caring when it comes to that report, and I think sharing it within their organization could be helpful to a lot of people so we'd encourage them to do that. So Michael, when is the publication due out and how can folks get their hands on it?
Michael Lacy:
The publication is slated to go out the last week of January, so we're in a couple of weeks now. Some of the podcasts that are associated with the year in review will already have gone out or been made public before then, and that's just due to some timing issues, but also you can access it on our firm website, troutman.com, as well as on our blogs that you've mentioned earlier and so it's available any sort of way. Of course, you can email myself or you, Chris, or anybody else in the Consumer Financial Services Practice Group and we'll be happy to send out the electronic copy.
Chris Willis:
This is a project that I can just say from my own personal involvement, because I co-lead one of the chapters on it for UDAP and Fair Lending. It's something that the partners in our group take very seriously and really enjoy doing, and they put their best thoughts together about what important happened in the last year and what do we expect in the coming year and I think it's really valuable insight. I enjoy reading the whole publication and I know that a lot of our clients will as well.
Michael Lacy:
Couldn't agree more with you, Chris. I also think it's a great opportunity for our practitioners to take a step back. We're busy servicing our clients throughout the year, but take a step back and try to get a holistic approach of what's happened and what's going to happen, and it really sets us up to be able to advise our clients in 2025 and beyond. So it is just a great exercise all the way around.
Chris Willis:
Okay. Well, thank you very much for joining me on the podcast today to tell everybody about this. And to the members of our audience, thanks for listening today. And of course, do take a look at the publication when it comes out and keep your podcast feed tuned to this and our other podcasts to see the related episodes as they come out over the course of January and February. And don't forget to visit and subscribe to our blogs TroutmanFinancialServices.com and ConsumerFinancialServicesLawMonitor.com. And while you're at it, why not head over and visit us on the web at Troutman.com? We've got a consumer financial services email list that you can put your name on, and that way we can send you copies of the various alerts and advisories that we send out as well as invitations to the industry-only webinars like the ones Michael said we were scheduling on the year in review document. 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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