Ask the Experts with Dick Rubin and April Kuehnhoff

April Kuehnhoff is a senior attorney in the National Consumer Law Center’s Boston office, where she advocates for fair debt collection. She is the co-author of NCLC’s Fair Debt Collection and a contributing author to Surviving Debt. Prior to joining NCLC, Ms. Kuehnhoff was an associate at Shapiro Haber & Urmy LLP, a law clerk for the Honorable Justice Gary Katzmann at the Massachusetts Appeals Court, and a Skirnick Public Interest Fellow at the Cambridge and Somerville Legal Services office of Greater Boston Legal Services. She is a graduate of Wellesley College and Harvard Law School.

Dick Rubin, Of Counsel to Gupta Wessler PLLC, is a nationally preeminent consumer law expert and appellate advocate whose string of victories in the federal courts of appeals has helped set the contours of current federal consumer protection law, particularly with respect to debt collection practices and credit reporting. Dick is a founding member of the National Association of Consumer Advocates and is now its Chair Emeritus after serving as Chair for many years. He regularly presents continuing legal education and training programs throughout the country. Dick has taught consumer law at the University Of New Mexico School of Law and is a Contributing Author of the National Consumer Law Center Fair Debt Collection and Fair Credit Reporting legal treatises, two of the widely praised sixteen-volume Consumer Credit and Sales Legal Practice Series that the American Bar Journal review described as “a monumental undertaking comparable to but more practical than the Restatement of Laws.” In 2000 Dick was the recipient of the Vern Countryman Award — the nation’s highest honor for special contributions to the field of consumer law — and was named in 2006 to the Lawdragon 500 Leading Plaintiffs’ Lawyers in America. He is frequently quoted on consumer law issues in the press, ranging from legal specialty publications such as the National Law Journal and general circulation publications such as Smart Money and the New York Times. Dick has practiced law in Santa Fe, New Mexico for forty-eight years, concentrating on consumer protection law. He spent the first five years of his career as a legal services attorney and as its state-wide consumer law trainer. He served a stint as the General Counsel of New Mexico’s Department of Human Services as an appointee of Democratic Governor Toney Anaya and then spent several years as a consumer law practitioner in Santa Fe. For the past twenty-eight years, Dick has limited his practice to handling federal appeals arising under federal consumer protection statutes. During this period of concentration on appellate advocacy, Dick has appeared before the court of appeals for almost every federal circuit.