Allyson B. Baker, General Attorney in Washington, District of Columbia

Allyson Baker serves as the Global Co-Chair of the Investigations and White Collar Defense practice at Paul Hastings, Co-Chair of the firm’s litigation practice in Washington, D.C., and as a partner in the Fintech & Payment and Investigations & White Collar Defense practices. Ms. Baker is a trial attorney, civil litigator, and counselor with significant experience in the federal government and private practice. She represents consumer finance companies and individuals in confidential, non-public investigations initiated by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) Office of Enforcement, state attorneys general, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), state banking agencies, and the Department of Justice (DOJ).

She also serves as litigation counsel for financial services companies, advises on consumer financial laws, and provides strategic and risk management counsel to consumer finance companies dealing with the CFPB and other federal and state law enforcement and regulatory agencies.

As part of her government experience, Ms. Baker spent time as an enforcement attorney at the CFPB, where she served as lead counsel in In the Matter of Discover Bank, which was one of the first enforcement actions in agency history and resulted in one of the largest agency settlements to date. She was a member of the initial team of attorneys hired to stand up the CFPB’s Office of Enforcement. As part of this effort, she helped formulate policies on litigation and investigations. She also led an office working group that created, reviewed, and coordinated research projects involving the application and jurisdiction of the Consumer Financial Protection Act and a group that coordinated the work of the Office of Enforcement and the CFPB’s Office of Fair Lending and Equal Opportunity.

Before joining the CFPB, Ms. Baker was a trial attorney with the DOJ Tax Division, where she served as a first-chair trial counsel in a number of jury and bench trials involving complex financial transactions, including a test case involving the sale of credit life insurance and other credit insurance products by credit unions.

Throughout her career, Ms. Baker has worked on some of the most significant and high-profile cases and investigations in the consumer financial services area. She also routinely counsels companies about all aspects of federal and state consumer finance laws. She advises companies about new consumer financial products and business models, and undertakes due diligence reviews. She has assisted companies and trade associations in their writing of comments for proposed CFPB rulemakings and requests for information.