Jenny Lee represents the consumer financial services industry in sensitive, complex adversarial or regulatory matters. She advocates for clients in investigations or market reviews commenced by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), the prudential bank regulators, the Federal Trade Commission, the state attorneys general, or state banking agencies. As a former federal bank regulator, Jenny offers clients valuable perspectives on the above matters. Since resuming private practice in 2015, Jenny has successfully defended against 18 investigations across many product lines, such as demand deposit accounts, online banking, student loans, credit cards, mortgage, credit scores, debt collection, lead generation, payroll cards, retail-installment lending, online lending, rent-to-own solutions, identity protection, pension advances, auto finance, and others. Jenny also counsels clients in litigation and supervisory matters across a wide spectrum of consumer finance markets.
Clients rely on Jenny for matters requiring the ability to intertwine traditional consumer finance and next generation fintech. She represents publicly traded financial institutions, non-bank financial services companies, investors, start-ups and founders, executives, and technology platforms. Jenny regularly advises fintech companies and their partners on consumer loans, Terms of Use, disclosure issues, mobile banking technology, privacy, product design, advertising, M&A due diligence, credit scoring models, and money transmission. Jenny also advocates for clients on public policy matters involving the CFPB, the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, the California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation, FinCEN, and other governmental bodies. She also advises clients on cryptocurrency and digital assets, including licensing matters involving the New York Department of Financial Services.
As to enforcement matters, the greatest victory lies in avoiding them. As such, Jenny helps identify and mitigate risk and counsels business lines with regard to compliance.
Jenny’s experience includes the following regulations: Title X of the Dodd-Frank Act, Electronic Fund Transfer Act, Fair Credit Reporting Act, Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, Truth in Lending Act, Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act, Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act, state law equivalents, California Consumer Privacy Act, money transmission, and related regulations promulgated by the CFPB, prudential bank regulators, Federal Trade Commission, FinCEN, or state agencies.
With regard to unfair, deceptive, or abusive acts and practices, or UDAAPs, Jenny is the only practitioner in private practice in the United States, and she was the first person at the CFPB to file a case identifying the meaning and parameters of an “abusive” act within the CFPB’s UDAAPs authority. During her public service, she led training for examiners at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation on how to identify an “abusive” act during examinations.
Jenny is a highly regarded author and commentator on financial services issues and has been quoted in leading publications, including The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, American Banker, The National Law Journal, and Forbes. She served as the lead co-editor of the first-ever treatise of its kind, Consumer Finance Law: Understanding Consumer Financial Services Regulations, which was published by the American Bar Association (ABA) in 2021. She also participates as a member of the governing committee of the Conference on Consumer Financial Law and on the leadership of the Consumer Financial Services Committee of the ABA.
Jenny maintains an active pro bono practice. She has obtained asylum at trial for a family of four from Mexico, secured a victory in a death penalty case at original trial, represented a human trafficking victim from Ethiopia in civil litigation, and defended a U.S. service member in a collections lawsuit in violation of federal law. Jenny has also represented immigrants and veterans on various matters, and collaborated with the Microfinance CEO Working Group to implement the Model Law and Commentary for Financial Consumer Protection in developing countries.
Throughout her career, Jenny has been active in the Asian-American and Korean American bars at the global, national, and local levels. She has served as an officer or board member of APABA-DC, KABA-DC, and KABA-Chicago, the co-chair of the Thomas Tang Moot Court of NAPABA, and as board member and/or regional governor for 10 years with the International Association of Korean Lawyers. Jenny also served on the board of Opera Lafayette (Washington, DC) and on the auxiliary board of the Global Alliance for Africa (Chicago).
Outside of consumer finance, fintech, and crypto, Jenny enjoys time with family, general fitness and lifting weights, and creating art through digital and live music collaboration.
