People

Kathryn Ryan Partner

Washington, D.C.

She represents banks, first and second mortgage originators and servicers, reverse mortgage originators and servicers, fulfillment service providers, commercial lenders and servicers, bank holding companies, private equity firms, finance companies, debt collection companies, financial institutions and technology companies, payment processors, money transmitters and various related service providers.

Katy assists clients with matters before state regulatory agencies, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), the Department of Justice (DOJ), the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), federal banking agencies, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. She also provides strategic and tactical advice to help clients identify and secure the nationwide federal and state approvals necessary to achieve operational goals.

Prior to joining Orrick, Katy was a partner at Buckley LLP, where she was a member of the firm’s partner board.

Sherry-Maria Safchuk Partner

Santa Monica

Sherry’s clients include banks, mortgage originators and servicers, mortgage brokers, commercial lenders, bank holding companies, private equity firms, investment advisors, investment managers, finance companies, fintechs, consumer reporting agencies, data brokers, debt collection companies and related service providers.

She is a Certified Information Privacy Professional (CIPP/US), and was a member of the Mortgage Bankers Association’s 2016 class of Future Leaders and the California Mortgage Bankers Association’s 2014 class of Future Leaders.

Prior to joining Orrick, Sherry was a partner at Buckley LLP. She has been an associate in private practice. She also clerked for the Honorable Jeanette J. Clark in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia.

Scott Sakiyama Partner, Currently on client secondment

Chicago

Scott has an active appellate practice in federal and state courts throughout the U.S. He has been involved in the SEC’s enforcement program, including the Wells process and the emerging issues surrounding the agency’s whistleblower programs and employee protections thereunder.

He has an active pro bono practice that includes criminal and civil rights matters. He also has been appointed to serve as a member of the Chicago Bar Association’s Judicial Evaluation Committee’s Investigative Division and as a commissioner on the Village of Oak Park’s Community Relations Commission.

Prior to joining Orrick, Scott was a partner at Buckley LLP, where he was also a member of the firm’s Diversity Committee.

Ignacio Sandoval Partner

Washington, D.C.

Ignacio engages with the SEC and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) on behalf of clients on critical matters related to their business by seeking regulatory relief, interpretive guidance, exemptions and as a subject matter expert in enforcement and examination matters. He advises major U.S. broker-dealers in their clearing, retail, trading and institutional businesses, and on their financial responsibility and operational obligations.

Ignacio has counseled numerous broker-dealers on their obligations under the net capital rule (Rule 15c3-1), the customer protection rule (Rule 15c3-3), margin (Regulation T, Regulation U, Regulation X, FINRA Rule 4210, etc.), recordkeeping and reporting rules (Rule 17a-3, Rule 17a-4, Rule 17a-5, Rule 17a-8, Rule 17a-11, Rule 17a-13, etc.) and other middle office and back-office requirements. He has drafted market standard clearing and custody agreements for broker-dealers and has experience working on various types of agreements affecting market intermediaries and participants, including trading agreements, customer agreements, distribution agreements and platform agreements.

Ignacio regularly registers and provides support to alternative trading systems (ATS) and counsels market participants regarding their obligations to register as such. In addition, he has helped broker-dealers develop management platforms for clients involving money market funds and other cash equivalent instruments. He also has experience with cash sweep programs involving money market funds and bank deposit programs insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC).

Ignacio’s experience also includes matters relating to domestic and foreign broker-dealer registrations, customer account statement and confirmation requirements, mergers and acquisition brokers, anti-money laundering obligations for buy-side and sell-side participants, transaction confirmations and outsourcing broker-dealer technology and platforms. He counsels foreign exchanges and foreign clearing organizations regarding U.S. regulatory obligations on the access of U.S. person to foreign options markets and security-futures products.

Justin Seccombe Senior Associate

Chicago

His experience includes representing clients in high-stakes litigation throughout the country in matters concerning federal and state consumer protection statutes, as well as complex commercial disputes. He further advises and represents clients in regulatory, supervisory, and enforcement matters before federal and state agencies including the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), the Department of Justice (DOJ), the Office of the Inspector General (OIG), and states attorneys general. Justin assists clients through all aspects of litigation, including briefing dispositive and discovery motions, managing large-scale discovery reviews and productions, preparing expert reports, arguing motions in both state and federal court, opposing class certification, and conducting settlement negotiations. With respect to enforcement matters, Justin represents clients through supervisory actions and assists them with the PARR (Potential Action and Request for Response) and NORA (Notice and Opportunity to Respond and Advise) process, crafting responses and working with regulators to reach favorable outcomes.

Prior to joining Orrick, Justin was an associate at Buckley LLP. Before practicing law, Justin worked with sports agents for some of the most successful players in the National Football League, including league MVPs, Super Bowl winners, and numerous rookies of the year.

Susanna Sedrak Partner

Santa Monica

Susanna assists clients by providing federal and state compliance advice, including completing surveys on various mortgage, consumer, and commercial-lending topics, such as requirements related to fair lending, debt collection, preemption, bank partnership models, interest on escrow, borrower correspondence and navigating communications with Limited English Proficiency borrowers. She analyzes lending and servicing practices in light of federal laws such as the Truth in Lending Act (TILA), Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (RESPA), Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA), and Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), and their accompanying regulations, as well as assists with preemption determinations.

She is a co-founder of Winnow, an innovative platform that allows financial and lending institutions to generate custom state regulatory surveys and searches by business type, license, product and geographic market. She is also the Chair of the Webinars & Roundtables Subcommittee of the American Bar Association's Consumer Financial Services Committee and was a member of the of Mortgage Banking Association’s 2014 class of Future Leaders.
 

Prior to joining Orrick, Susanna was a partner at Buckley LLP. Before Buckley, she was an associate at Winston & Strawn.

Edward Somers Partner

Chicago

Ted is a trusted advisor to the financial services industry in supervisory and enforcement matters before state and federal regulators, including the CFPB, and the DOJ. He also has significant experience guiding clients through enhancements to internal policies, practices, and customer-facing documentation to align with regulator expectations.

Prior to joining Orrick, Ted was a partner at Buckley LLP.

Caroline Stapleton Partner

Washington, D.C.

Client-centered experiences are at the heart of Caroline’s practice. She has provided a wide variety of institutions, from fintech startups to multinational banks, with tailored, practical guidance that considers each company’s unique characteristics and strategic goals. Caroline draws on her prior experiences as an attorney at a federal prudential regulator and as the head of compliance at a consumer finance company to give clients a comprehensive picture of the legal risks and opportunities each new matter presents.

Her work on behalf of financial services providers has included:

• Providing guidance regarding novel or complex regulatory questions, often in the context of developing new financial products and services
• Performing compliance risk assessments of marketing, underwriting, pricing, origination, servicing and loss mitigation activities
• Advising banks and supervised lenders with examinations by federal and state regulators, including responding to exam findings, CAMELS ratings, Matters Requiring Attention (MRA/MRIA) and enforcement referrals
• Strategically responding to and defending enforcement actions by state and federal regulators, including the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), Federal Reserve Board and Department of Justice (DOJ), and, if necessary, negotiating favorable settlements
• Developing strategies for bank partnership, state licensing and bank charter opportunities for consumer financial services providers
• Conducting internal investigations of suspected misconduct or violations of an institution’s policies and/or regulatory requirements

In these and other representations, Caroline brings strong substantive knowledge of the key federal and state statutes and regulations governing the financial services industry. Her specific areas of focus include:

• Fair lending and anti-discrimination laws, including the Fair Housing Act (FHA) and the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA)
• Prohibitions on unfair, deceptive or abusive acts or practices (UDAP and UDAAP)
• Technical regulatory compliance under federal and state laws governing loan marketing, disclosures, settlement practices, servicing and collection practices, consumer reporting and electronic payments
• Federal preemption, including under the National Bank Act
• Compliance management best practices and regulatory expectations, including third-party vendor and merchant oversight
• Treatment and disclosure of confidential supervisory information (CSI)
• State lease-to-own laws and regulations

Prior to joining Orrick, Caroline was senior counsel at Buckley LLP. She also has served as an attorney-advisor in the litigation division of the OCC, where she represented the agency in civil litigation, bank receivership preparation, employment disputes and other administrative contexts. Caroline also gained valuable in-house experience as the head of compliance and assistant general counsel of a Richmond-based consumer finance company.

Warren Traiger Senior Counsel

New York

He argued before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in Lee v. Board of Governors, a benchmark case regarding the rights of community organizations to challenge Federal Reserve Board (FRB) determinations on merger applications. He has testified before Congress and the federal banking agencies on fair lending and CRA reform, served as Special Counsel to the New York banking regulator on CRA, and advised the regulator on predatory lending regulation.

Warren regularly helps banks and bank holding companies prepare the community convenience and needs portion of their regulatory applications to merge or acquire, and he helps clients respond to public comment regarding CRA and fair lending compliance. He represented a bank in its acquisition and integration of the finance arm of major automaker, directing pre-acquisition fair lending due diligence and updating the combined entity’s policies, procedures and regulatory relations strategy. Warren also served as an independent consultant for the New York Attorney General, overseeing compliance with that office’s settlement with a company that provides criminal background checks on prospective employees.

A prolific writer and researcher, Warren’s research and statistical analysis of mortgage lending data has been cited in publications of the Federal Reserve Banks of San Francisco, Boston and Dallas; the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC); and in testimony before the U.S. House Financial Services Committee.

Prior to joining Orrick, Warren was senior counsel at Buckley LLP. He also served as Co-Chairman of Traiger & Hinckley LLP. Prior to entering private practice in 1990, Warren was vice president, counsel and director of government relations for the New York Bankers Association, the trade group for New York commercial banks. He also served as director of legislation and research and special counsel for the New York City Department of Consumer Affairs and as a New York State Consumer Protection Board official.

Warren is entrenched in the New York legal and financial services community. He has served on the Banking Law Committee of the New York State Bar Association, as a member of the Banking Law and Consumer Law Committees of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, and has taught as adjunct professor of economics at Hunter College of the City University of New York.

Avery Turzanski Associate

Washington, D.C.

Avery graduated from The George Washington University Law School with a concentration in Business & Finance Law. During law school, he interned for the Oregon Department of Justice (Financial Fraud and Consumer Protection Section), the Securities & Exchange Commission (Division of Enforcement), and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (Office of Enforcement). Avery also interned for Commissioner Kristin N. Johnson at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

Before law school, Avery worked in Anti-Money Laundering and Bank Secrecy Act compliance at a major bank. Avery has a B.Sc. in Economics and a B.A. in History from Santa Clara University.

Steven vonBerg Counsel

Washington, D.C.

Steve’s practice is focused on the full spectrum of federal mortgage lending laws, particularly those that have come out of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), including the Ability-to-Repay and Qualified Mortgage (ATR/QM) rule, the Loan Originator Compensation rule, the Truth in Lending Act-Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (TILA-RESPA) Integrated Disclosure rule (TRID), RESPA Section 8, the 2013 Mortgage Servicing Rules and the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) amendments.

Steve is active in the mortgage industry, writing articles and is a regular speaker at mortgage industry conferences. He was a contributing author to the CFPB Mortgage Origination Handbook (2nd Edition).  Steve also holds a Certified Mortgage Banker designation from the Mortgage Bankers Association and also completed the MBA's Future Leaders Program in 2018.

Prior to joining Orrick, Steve was Counsel at Buckley LLP.

Brian Wegrzyn Counsel

New York

Prior to joining Orrick, Brian was counsel at Buckley LLP, where he served as a member of the firm’s Pro Bono Committee. He also previously worked as a litigation associate at O’Melveny & Myers LLP, clerked for the Honorable Richard J. Sullivan in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (SDNY) and was an associate with Winston & Strawn LLP. Brian also has served as an adjunct professor of law at Fordham University Law School.