HANOVER, Md. — Hudson Cook LLP, a nationwide provider of legal compliance services for the financial services industry, has added the attorney who oversaw the Office of Installment and Liquidity Lending Markets for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. He is set to become a partner in the firm’s Portland, Maine, office on March 1.
Rick Hackett, considered the auto finance industry’s key liaison to the CFPB during his time as assistant director in the Division of Research, Markets and Regulations between 2011 and 2013, was responsible for advising all divisions of the bureau with respect to market information and policy issues in the installment and specialty lending areas. Since leaving the bureau in August 2013, he has continued his policy work as a speaker, teach and policy consultant.
“We welcome Rick to the firm. We think that he adds a dimension to our practice that will improve our ability to serve our clients,” said Tom Hudson, chairman of Hudson Cook LLP. “With his ability to provide insight into the regulatory process and thinking, Rick will be invaluable to our clients.”
Hackett’s practice will focus on all aspects of state and federal regulation of retail financial products origination and marketing, epayments, regulation of financial service entities, and lending, deposit and insurance transactions.
When news of Hackett’s impending departure began to spread in June 2013, one blogger in the consumer financial services industry described his exit as “a significant loss for the CFPB, particularly because he is one of the few CFPB attorneys with strong industry background.”
Bill Himpler, executive vice president of the American Financial Services Association, also described Hackett as one of the more “accessible members of the CFPB’s staff” when news of his department broke. “He was a valuable conduit between the CFPB and the industry,” he told F&I and Showroom last June.
Before joining the bureau, Hackett practiced law for 31 years as a partner and leader of the Banking and Financial Services Group at Pierce Atwood LLP in Boston and Portland. He also served as an adjunct member of the faculty at the Morin Center for Banking Law at Boston University School of Law from 2005 to 2011, and is a frequent lecturer on consumer financial services law.
From 1978 to 1979, Hackett, who graduated summa cum laude from Cornell Law School and magna cum laude from Dartmouth College, served as law clerk to the Honorable Frank M. Coffin, then Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals to the First Circuit.
Hackett also serves as a regent of the American College of Consumer Financial Services Lawyers and served as vice chair of the Consumer Financial Services Committee of the Business Law Section of the American Bar Association from 2008 to 2011. Hackett also served as chair of that committee’s subcommittee on internet delivery/electronic banking. He also remains active in the Maine State Bar Association Consumer and Financial Institutions Law Section (serving as chair from 1982 to 1986 and 1998 to 1999).
In a column he penned for F&I and Showroom in July 2013, Michael Benoit, a partner in the Washington, D.C., office of Hudson Cook, described Hackett as one of the hardest working people at the CFPB. He added, “… it’s no surprise that he may be a little tuckered out from what has been a two-plus-year effort” at the CFPB.
“Given his voracious intellectual curiosity, I wonder if retirement will suit him,” Benoit wrote. “I sincerely wish him all the best. But on a selfish note, I hope he decides to reengage and bring his formidable talent back to our stage.”
Come March 1, Hackett will step back on the stage as a partner with Hudson Cook LLP.
