Alan S. Kaplinsky

Alan S. Kaplinsky is the former longtime Practice Leader of the firm's Consumer Financial Services Group, which has 120 lawyers in 13 offices. Alan devotes his practice exclusively to managing the Group and counseling financial institutions on bank regulatory and transactional matters, particularly consumer financial services law, and defending financial institutions that have been sued by consumers in individual and class action lawsuits and by government enforcement agencies. Visit Alan's profile in Wikipedia.

Alan is heavily involved in counseling and representing clients in a wide variety of matters (regulatory, supervisory and enforcement) involving the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. He was instrumental in launching a blog, Consumer Finance Monitor, devoted to the consumer financial services activities of the CFPB as well as other federal and state agencies and attorneys general and other significant consumer financial services developments.

Alan pioneered the use of pre-dispute arbitration provisions in consumer contracts, has counseled numerous consumer financial services companies on this subject, and has defended in court numerous companies that have sought to enforce consumer arbitration agreements.

Alan is included in the 2006 through 2020 editions of Chambers USA in the area of financial services regulation. As head of the firm's consumer financial services group, Chambers refers to him as "its leading light for CFPB compliance matters" and calls him "a guru of consumer financial services on both the regulatory and litigation sides [who has] earned his well-deserved national reputation when successfully defending the very first class actions brought against financial institutions." Clients are highly complementary of his abilities, declaring him to be "one of if not the top consumer expert in the United States" and "the dean of consumer regulatory compliance."

Professional Activities

American Bar Association, past Chair, Committee on Consumer Financial Services

Adviser to the American Law Institute (ALI) Restatement of the Law Third, Consumer Contracts

University of Pennsylvania Law School and Temple University James E. Beasley School of Law, past Adjunct Professor

American Law Institute, elected member since May 2006

Recognition & Accomplishments

Chambers USA, leading lawyer, Financial Services Regulation: Consumer Finance (compliance) (national ranking band one); and banking and finance: mainly regulatory (Pennsylvania band one)

The Best Lawyers in America, financial services regulation law, banking and finance litigation, and corporate law, 2007-2021; "Lawyer of the Year," Litigation (Philadelphia) and Banking & Finance (Philadelphia), 2018, 2019; "Lawyer of the Year," Litigation - Banking and Finance (Philadelphia), 2021

The Legal 500 US, listed in 2011-2020 editions, Financial Services: Regulatory

Recipient, National Law Review's Go-To Thought Leadership Award in Consumer Finance, 2018

Recipient, Lifetime Achievement Award, American College of Consumer Financial Services Lawyers, 2016

Named a Litigation Trailblazer by The National Law Journal, 2015 

First President, American College of Consumer Financial Services Lawyers

Publications

Member, Financial Services Advisors, Consumer Financial Services Law Report

The Business Lawyer (a publication of the American Bar Association, Business Law Section) Annual Survey of Consumer Financial Services Law
articles providing yearly updates on consumer arbitration developments since 1998

Frequently quoted in national publications, including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, American Banker, and numerous other publications about consumer financial services issues

Speaking Engagements

Co-Chair for 24 years of the Practising Law Institute's Annual Consumer Financial Services Institute

Frequent presenter to numerous organizations on banking and consumer financial services law

Board Memberships

Bloomberg BNA Banking Report Advisory Board

Boston College Law School (J.D., cum laude, 1970)
Editor, Boston College Industrial and Commercial Law Review; Member, Order of the Coif

University of Pennsylvania, Wharton School of Business (B.S., cum laude, 1967)

Pennsylvania

New York

U.S. Supreme Court