Edward W. Somers

Edward Somers is a Partner in the Chicago office of Buckley LLP. Mr. Somers' practice focuses on advising financial institutions and the fintech industry in regulatory, supervisory, and enforcement matters related to payment systems, consumer lending, and electronic contracting. Mr. Somers routinely assists clients with designing and enhancing products, policies and processes for compliance with the Electronic Fund Transfer Act (EFTA), the Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce Act (ESIGN), the Uniform Electronic Transactions Act (UETA), the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC), and various other laws and industry standards. He has also represented financial institutions in examinations and enforcement matters by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).

His experience includes:

• Routinely advising a variety of national and regional financial  institutions  in consumer protection law compliance, including in the areas of the EFTA, the Expedited Funds Availability Act, the Truth in Savings Act, the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, and the Americans with Disabilities act as applied to web and mobile content
   
• Providing gap analysis and consumer remediation counseling in the area of Regulation E compliance, including in the areas preauthorized payments, prepaid card products, error resolution requirements, and remittance transfers
   
• Advising in the areas of private payment systems rules, including National Automated Clearing House Association (NACHA) and card network rules
   
• Advising financial institutions on end-to-end design of electronic contracting processes, from drafting underlying consumer agreements to the design of electronic presentation, execution, and record retention processes
   
• Counseling on the design and implementation of systems necessary to comply with the ESIGN Act, UETA and Article 9 of the UCC in connection with the creation, execution, retention and assignment of transferable records, electronic chattel paper and other electronic evidences of debt
   
• End-to-end design counseling for electronic consumer contracting processes and compliance with the ESIGN Act and UETA, and other similar state analogues; and
   
• Advising companies bringing new financial services to the U.S. market from abroad—including advising on modifications to existing products, terms of use, and consumer contracts to comply with U.S. legal requirements, as well as the creation of policies and procedures to support ongoing compliance with U.S. legal requirements

Mr. Somers received his J.D. from the University of Chicago in 2009 and his B.A. from the University of Notre Dame in 2006.