Womble Bond Dickinson added a five-lawyer financial services litigation team led by partners Jeffrey Patterson, Ryan Tosi and Phoebe Winder to its Boston office. The team represents large financial institutions, including national banks and mortgage and credit card servicers, and has served as national coordinating counsel and litigation counsel to those institutions in class actions, government inquiries and proceedings, and consumer cases in courts across the country. They are joined by associates Keith McCarthy in Boston and Reymond Yammine, who joins the firm’s New York office. All five arrive from K&L Gates.
“Womble has been building its Financial Services platform for some time now, adding litigation, regulatory, and compliance capability so that financial institutions can bring us their most consequential matters,” Lisa Rushton, the firm’s business litigation co-practice group leader, said. “This team accelerates that. They bring nationally recognized financial services litigation practices and relationships with major institutions that go back decades, and they join a Business Litigation group that is growing at the same pace as the sector it serves.”
The group defends class actions under federal and state lending, debt collection, credit reporting and consumer protection laws and represents servicers in government inquiries into their bankruptcy operations. Its lawyers have negotiated resolutions with the U.S. Trustee Program on behalf of major institutions, and the group tries cases and argues appeals. The practice also extends beyond consumer finance into antitrust and complex commercial disputes, as well as international securities fraud litigation on behalf of asset managers, pension funds and institutional investors.
“Jeff, Ryan and Phoebe are first-chair litigators with national practices and deep, trusted client relationships, exactly the kind of lawyers our clients expect to find at Womble,” Deborah Vernon, the firm’s Boston office managing partner, said. “Their arrival is a significant step in the continued growth of our Boston office and strengthens what we can offer clients in this market.”
Jeffrey Patterson is a trial and appellate litigator who has represented corporations for three decades. National banks, mortgage servicers, student lenders and other consumer financial services providers rely on him in litigation, class actions, arbitrations and administrative proceedings, and he has handled class actions for large banks in at least seven states. His commercial practice reaches into monopolization and restraint-of-trade claims under the Sherman and Clayton Acts, pricing disputes under the Robinson-Patman Act, and false advertising, gray market and counterfeit matters. Patterson earned his J.D. from the University of South Carolina School of Law and his B.A. from Furman University.
Ryan Tosi defends financial institutions, consumer credit companies and other businesses in class actions, consumer bankruptcy matters and commercial disputes, and he has served as national coordinating counsel on government and consumer inquiries into bankruptcy servicing practices. Tosi also counsels asset managers, pension funds and institutional investors in international securities fraud litigation and arbitration, including litigation funding matters in the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands, Brazil and Italy. He earned his J.D. from Northeastern University School of Law and his B.A., magna cum laude, from Boston College.
Phoebe Winder serves as national outside counsel to several large mortgage and credit card servicers and represents financial institutions in loan-level and class action consumer finance litigation. Her practice sits where consumer bankruptcy meets regulatory enforcement. Winder has resolved more than a dozen national settlements with the bankruptcy arm of the U.S. Department of Justice, directed remediation efforts across numerous jurisdictions, and defended more than one hundred examinations initiated by the U.S. Trustee Program, and she builds the certification and quality-control programs that let institutions review their own filing practices before regulators do. She earned her J.D. from the University of Michigan Law School and her B.A. from Vanderbilt University.
