Allyson Baker is co-chair of the firm’s Consumer Financial Services practice. Ms. Baker is a trial attorney and civil litigator with 18 years of experience in the federal government and private practice. Ms. Baker represents numerous consumer finance companies and individuals in confidential, non-public investigations initiated by the CFPB's Office of Enforcement, State Attorneys General, State Banking agencies, and the Department of Justice. She also routinely serves as litigation counsel for financial services companies, advises companies on all aspects of consumer financial laws, and provides strategic counsel to consumer finance companies dealing with the CFPB and other law enforcement and regulatory agencies.
Immediately before joining Venable, Ms. Baker was 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 Dodd-Frank 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’s Civil 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. While at the Tax Division, Ms. Baker received three Outstanding Attorney Awards and a special commendation for her first-chair trial work on two high-profile civil tax fraud trials involving novel sets of facts.
She is co-editor of Venable’s Consumer Financial Services Digest and regularly writes on topics related to financial services litigation and law enforcement investigations.
Last updated September 2019
