Online Roundtable Discussion: Imposter Scams

Larry P. Smith is a consumer attorney, handling matters involving the FCRA, FDCPA, and EFTA, as well as state consumer fraud/UDAP matters for over eighteen years. He is the managing partner at SmithMarco, P.C., which he established in 2005. Mr. Smith has tried dozens of consumer rights cases to verdict in the state and federal courts of Illinois, Georgia, and Wisconsin and has arbitrated over 700 cases. Additionally, he has amicably resolved over 4,000 consumer fraud, FCRA, and FDCPA cases via settlement. Mr. Smith earned his Juris Doctor from The John Marshall Law School in 1993. He earned his B.A. degree in Political Science from the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana in 1990. Mr. Smith has been a member of NACA for the past twelve years and has served as Illinois state chair

Janet Varnell, Varnell & Warwick, PA, is a consumer class action expert leading over 60 cases and serving on plaintiff steering committees in MDL litigation, but also handles a variety of other high-impact public interest litigation. Her firm has won a multitude of appellate victories in state and federal courts, including a 2019 United Supreme Court win in a consumer class action. Varnell was awarded “Consumer Lawyer of the Year” in 2019 by the Florida Bar, 2009 “Consumer Advocate of the Year” by NACA and 2018 “Trial Lawyer of the Year” by Public Justice.  She is the President Elect of Public Justice’s Board of Directors, serves on the Partners Council of the National Consumer Law Center and is the past co-chair of the National Association of Consumer Advocates. She is an adjunct Professor at Stetson College of Law teaching Consumer Class Actions. She has chaired State Bar committees and served as a mediator and arbitrator for attorney fee disputes.

Cathy Lesser Mansfield is a law professor at Case Western Reserve University School of Law. Prior to joining the CWRU faculty she was a Professor of Law at Drake University Law School, served as a Policy Analyst with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and was a Visiting Professor of Law at Georgetown Law School.  Professor Mansfield teaches a variety of consumer, payments and commercial law courses, is a co-author of the National Consumer Law Center’s Consumer Banking and Payments Law manual, and speaks nationally about consumer protection issues.  Professor Mansfield also teaches a course called “Holocaust and the Law.”  She is a Distinguished Fellow at The Consortium for the Research and Study of Holocaust and the Law at Chicago-Kent College of Law’s Center for National Security and Human Rights Law.  She is the composer and librettist of an opera, entitled The Sparks Fly Upward, that follows three German families in Berlin, two Jewish and one Christian, through the Holocaust, and she is founder and Executive Director of The Sparks Fly Upward Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to educating people about the Holocaust, genocide and tolerance through presentations of Sparks, and ancillary activities.