Overview
(January 3, 2024, Washington, DC) — Steptoe LLP has announced the continued growth of its Consumer Financial Services practice with the addition of Juliana Gerrick. Juliana joins the firm as a partner in Washington, DC. Juliana is a consumer financial services regulatory attorney with over a decade of experience advising bank and non-bank clients on compliance with state and federal consumer protection laws and is a go-to attorney in credit card lending.
"Juliana brings considerable consumer financial protection and consumer credit regulatory experience to Steptoe," commented firm chair Gwen Renigar. "She works at the intersection of business, government policy, and the courts, exactly where our firm focuses. Her addition fits with our growth strategy and further enhances our financial regulatory capabilities. She also provides us with the ability to provide end-to-end counselling on developing credit products, services and programs, including program structure, product design and characterization, and account servicing to clients."
Juliana helps financial institutions, fintechs and other non-bank financial services providers navigate federal and state lending and payments laws to launch cutting-edge consumer and B2B financial products, services, and platforms. She provides clients with a broad spectrum of consumer financial services compliance and regulatory advice in connection with deposit, credit, and alternative financing products and has extensive experience developing credit programs. Juliana also assists clients in responding to federal and state regulator inquiries and defending against government enforcement actions, including those involving the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and the California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation (DFPI). She is ranked by Chambers USA for Consumer Finance (Compliance) and has been named a U.S. FinTech Rising Star by the Legal 500.
Juliana added: "I'm excited to bring my experience counseling clients on their most complicated financial regulatory matters to further the growth and momentum at Steptoe. The firm offers a strong platform for providing global strategic counseling on a wide variety of financial service issues and the opportunity to work alongside an outstanding team of leading financial industry talent."
The addition follows another group of recent high-profile hires in the financial services regulatory and litigation space, including Julia Strickland, Stephen Newman, Christopher Fredrich, Andrew Owens, and Ryan Hayden.
Over the past two years, Steptoe’s Financial Services practice has handled a number of significant matters, often at the boundary areas of emerging regulation and financial services products, including advocating on behalf of a US-based cryptocurrency exchange on the issue of what constitutes "actual delivery" in the digital currency context under CFTC rules, securing no-action letter relief for a coalition of community development financial institutions from the CFTC.
About Steptoe
In more than 110 years of practice, Steptoe has earned an international reputation for vigorous representation of clients before governmental agencies, successful advocacy in litigation and arbitration, and creative and practical advice in structuring business transactions. Steptoe has more than 500 lawyers and other professional staff across offices in Beijing, Brussels, Chicago, Hong Kong, London, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, and Washington. For more information, visit www.steptoe.com.
