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Rachel Rodman leads Cadwalader’s Fintech Enforcement and Litigation practice. Rachel defends fintechs, banks, specialty finance companies, and other financial services institutions in investigations, supervisory actions, and civil litigation by federal and state regulators. She also handles sensitive internal investigations and civil litigation for these same clients, including consumer class actions. Rachel’s cases often present novel questions of statutory interpretation. She therefore has significant experience in administrative law and procedure, constitutional litigation, and cases challenging the scope of executive agency authority. In 2022, she was added to the inaugural “Lawdragon 500 Leading Litigators in America” guide and awarded this same recognition again by Lawdragon for 2024. In 2023, Rachel was recommended by The Legal 500 in Financial Services Regulation and Corporate Investigations and White Collar Criminal Defense. Clients say she is “extremely intelligent” and has “super strong writing and oral advocacy skills.”
Fintechs, financial institutions, and their boards of directors regularly seek Rachel’s advice on risk and compliance, and she frequently publishes and speaks on legal issues important to the industry. She has published in, among others, Thomson Reuters, The Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance, Law360, Bloomberg Law, Bloomberg BNA’s Banking Report andThe Hill, and has been quoted in The New York Times, American Banker, Law.com, Law360, Bloomberg Law, Compliance Week and The Washington Examiner. In 2023, Rachel was selected as a member of Law360's 2023 Fintech Editorial Advisory Board.
Rachel was previously with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). She served as senior counsel in the CFPB’s Legal Division, representing the agency in trial and appellate courts and advising agency leadership. She also served as an enforcement attorney in the CFPB’s Division of Supervision, Fair Lending and Enforcement, where she led investigations of banks and nonbanks involving overdraft practices, debt collection, mortgage servicing and consumer reporting. Rachel was lead counsel in several of the CFPB’s major settlements with banks and mortgage companies. She was previously a litigator with Williams & Connolly LLP.
Rachel’s investigations experience includes:
- Defending banks, nonbanks, and fintechs in response to supervisory actions and bet-the-company enforcement actions by the CFPB, including representing a large bank in an investigation and supervisory examinations by the CFPB and OCC related to sales practices
- Representing board of directors of a financial institution in an internal investigation of a whistleblower complaint and related regulatory inquiries
- Representing public company in a civil action by the Securities and Exchange Commission alleging violations of Sections 10(b) and 13(b) of the Exchange Act
- Representing bank service provider in civil litigation by a state financial regulator involving novel issues of federal preemption and state licensing laws
- Defending non-bank company in an investigation by multiple state Attorneys General relating to an offering of ancillary financial products to consumers
Rachel’s class action experience includes:
- Defending the CEO of a tribal lending company in multiple putative nationwide class actions alleging RICO violations and that consumer loans were illegal under state law
- Defending reseller of consumer reports in nationwide putative class action alleging violations of the Fair Credit Reporting Act
Rachel’s administrative and constitutional law experience includes:
- Representing leading trade association in the Third Circuit as amicus curiae in CFPB v. NCSLT, et al., which presents an issue of first impression regarding the scope of the CFPB’s enforcement authority
- Representing banking trade association in federal district court and the Third Circuit in First Amendment litigation challenging state campaign finance restrictions on banks
- Advising clients on questions of agency authority under a variety of federal statutes, including Title X of the Dodd-Frank Act and HERA
*Certain representations occurred prior to Rachel's association with Cadwalader.
Rachel is a member of the District of Columbia and Virginia bars, and is admitted to practice before the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, and the United States Courts of Appeal for the Third and Fourth Circuits.
