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).
Pennsylvania
Contact Info:
Ballard Spahr LLP
1735 Market Street 51st Floor
Philadelphia, PA 19103
