Speaker biographies

Adam Levitin is an associate professor of law at Georgetown University Law Center and the Robert Zinman Resident Scholar at the American Bankruptcy Institute. He also serves as special counsel for mortgage affairs for the Congressional Oversight Panel. Before joining the Georgetown faculty, Mr. Levitin practiced in the business finance and restructuring department of Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP in New York and served as law clerk to the Honorable Jane Richards Roth on the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. Mr. Levitin's research focuses on financial institutions and their role in the consumer and business credit economy, including consumer finance, structured finance, identity theft, and business bankruptcy reorganization.

Eric Stein is the deputy assistant secretary for consumer protection at the U.S. Department of the Treasury. He was formerly the president of Center for Community Self-Help, a nonprofit community development lender whose mission is to create ownership and economic opportunity for people of color, women, rural residents, and low-wealth families and communities. Mr. Stein was also senior vice president of Self-Help's affiliate, Center for Responsible Lending, a nonprofit, nonpartisan research and policy organization dedicated to protecting homeownership and family wealth by working to eliminate abusive financial practices. Mr. Stein has testified in Congress on predatory mortgage lending and foreclosure prevention. He was also the executive director of CASA, a nonprofit organization that develops housing primarily for homeless persons with disabilities. In addition, he has worked for Fannie Mae's office of low- and moderate-income housing, Congressman David Price (D-N.C.), and U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Sam J. Ervin III.

Peter J. Wallison holds the Arthur F. Burns Chair in Financial Policy Studies at AEI, where he codirects the Institute's program on financial market studies. He is also a cochair of the Pew Financial Reform Task Force and a member of the congressionally authorized Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission. Mr. Wallison previously practiced banking, corporate, and financial law at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher in Washington, D.C., and New York. During 1986 and 1987, Mr. Wallison was White House counsel to President Ronald Reagan. From 1981 to 1985, Mr. Wallison was general counsel of the Treasury Department, where he had a significant role in the development of the Reagan administration's proposals for deregulation in the financial services industry. He also served as general counsel to the Depository Institutions Deregulation Committee and participated in the Treasury Department's efforts to deal with the debt held by less-developed countries. Between 1972 and 1976, Mr. Wallison served first as special assistant to New York governor Nelson A. Rockefeller and, subsequently, as counsel to Mr. Rockefeller when he was vice president of the United States.

Julie Williams joined the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) in 1993 and became acting comptroller of the currency in 2004. She was initially appointed chief counsel of the OCC in 1994, with responsibility for the licensing and community affairs departments and for all of the agency's legal activities. As the agency's statutory "first deputy," she also served as acting comptroller for the majority of 1998. Before joining the OCC, Ms. Williams served in a variety of positions at the Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS) and its predecessor agency, the Federal Home Loan Bank Board (FHLBB), culminating in a position as senior deputy chief counsel at the OTS from 1991 to 1993. Ms. Williams joined the FHLBB in 1983 after working as an attorney with the law firm of Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Kampelman in Washington, D.C., from 1975 to 1983. She is the author of National Banks and the Dual Banking System (Comptroller of the Currency, 2003) and Savings Institutions: Mergers, Acquisitions and Conversions (Law Journal Seminars-Press, 1988) and has published numerous articles on the regulation of depository institutions, financial services, securities, and corporate law matters.

Joshua Wright is an assistant professor of law at George Mason University School of Law and in the department of economics, where he studies antitrust, empirical, and contractual law and economics; consumer protection, and intellectual property. Mr. Wright was recently appointed as the inaugural scholar in residence at the Federal Trade Commission Bureau of Competition, where he served until fall 2008. He was also a visiting professor at the University of Texas School of Law and a visiting fellow at the Searle Center at the Northwestern University Law School during the 2008-2009 academic year. Previously, Mr. Wright clerked for the Honorable James V. Selna of the Central District of California and taught at the Pepperdine University Graduate School of Public Policy. His publications have appeared in leading academic journals, and he is the coeditor of two volumes forthcoming in 2010: Pioneers of Law and Economics (Elgar Publishing) and Competition Policy and Patent Law under Uncertainty: Regulating Innovation (Cambridge Press). Mr. Wright has also testified at the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission. He is a cofounder of the Microsoft/George Mason Annual Conference on the Law and Economics of Innovation, a member of the National Science Foundation Advisory Panel for Law and Social Sciences, and a regular contributor to Truth on the Market, a weblog dedicated to academic commentary on law, business, and economics.

Levitin - Consumer Financial Protection Agency

Wallison Introduction