Mark J. Levin is a partner at Ballard Spahr and a member of the
firm’s Consumer Financial Services Group and Litigation
Department. His practice is focused on consumer financial services
litigation, and he has particular experience in the structuring and
enforcement of consumer arbitration clauses and the defense of financial
services companies and insurance companies in consumer class actions.
Mr. Levin helped pioneer the use of class action waivers in consumer
arbitration agreements and played a leading role in opposing the Consumer
Financial Protection Bureau’s arbitration rule. In 2007, he
testified for the lending industry before a subcommittee of the U.S.
House Judiciary Committee at an oversight hearing on whether mandatory
arbitration provisions in consumer contracts are fair to consumers.
Mr. Levin has enforced consumer arbitration agreements with class action
waivers in the U.S. Supreme Court and numerous federal and state appellate
and trial courts and has tried both individual and class arbitrations.
He also has defended class actions brought against companies under the
Telephone Consumer Protection Act, the Truth in Lending Act, the Fair
Credit Reporting Act, the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, the Electronic Funds
Transfer Act, the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, and state UDAAP statutes
prohibiting unfair, deceptive and abusive acts and practices.
Mr. Levin has published an annual update on arbitration law developments for
The Business Lawyer since 1998. He also has published articles in
Business Law Today, the Delaware Journal of Corporate Law,
the Consumer Finance Law Quarterly Report, the Consumer Financial
Services Law Report, Washington Legal Foundation Legal Studies, and the
University of Pennsylvania Regulatory Review. Mr. Levin is a graduate
of New York University (M.A., 1971 and B.A., 1970), the University of
Pennsylvania (Ph.D. in English Literature, 1974), and the Villanova University
School of Law (J.D., 1977), where he was Managing Editor of the
Villanova Law Review and received the Scribes Award for excellence
in legal writing. He also was a Teaching Fellow in the University of Pennsylvania
English Department (1972-74). After receiving his law degree, Mr. Levin clerked
for the Honorable John Biggs, Jr., U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third
Circuit (1977-78).
Professional Affiliations
- American Bar Association, Business Law Section