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Melissa L. Richards is a Shareholder in the San Francisco office, a member of the Bank and Finance Group, and Co-Chair of the Mortgage Banking Practice Group (with Denise Field). Ms. Richards also serves as outside General Counsel for the California Mortgage Bankers Association. Ms. Richards brings over 15 years legal experience and expertise in all areas of residential mortgage finance, including regulatory compliance and licensing. In this regard, Ms. Richards' client base covers the spectrum of the residential mortgage banking industry, from mortgage lenders, mortgage brokers, mortgage servicers, secondary market investors, and Wall Street investment banking firms. Ms. Richards also carries an expertise in compliance and licensing issues facing insurance premium finance lenders and consumer finance lenders nationwide.
Ms. Richards has extensive experience in Federal issues involving: The Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act, Truth-In-Lending Act, Federal Privacy (Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act), Fair Housing Act/Equal Credit Opportunity Act, Home Mortgage Disclosure Act, Fair Credit Reporting Act (as amended by the 2004 FACT Act), and Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. Her expertise in California residential mortgage lending law covers all state law counterparts to these laws, as well as the litany of additional California laws and regulations governing residential mortgage finance.
Ms. Richards is a member of the California State Bar and the American Bar Association. She is a member of the Board of Directors for the California Mortgage Bankers Association and serves as the Association's outside general counsel. She was also recently appointed to the Editorial Board of Vendome's Mortgage Law Compliance Insider. The editorial board is a representative group of the nation's top residential mortgage compliance attorneys.
Ms. Richards is a frequent speaker at national, state, and local mortgage banking industry events. She has Ms. Richards received her B.S. in Agricultural and Managerial Economics from the University of California, Davis in 1985. She earned her J.D. from the University of San Francisco School of Law in 1988.
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