Hinshaw & Culbertson LLP is pleased to announce that Chicago partner Daniel (“Dan”) McGrath has been re-elected to serve as a Senior Director of the Federation of Defense & Corporate Counsel (FDCC) for the 2026–2027 term. 

Hinshaw & Culbertson LLP is pleased to announce that Charles Townsend, partner-in-charge of the Dallas office, has been named a finalist in the Best Mentor category of the 2026 Texas Legal Awards, presented by American Law Media (ALM).

Hinshaw & Culbertson LLP is pleased to announce that James (Jim) Sandy, partner-in-charge of the firm’s Cleveland office, has been selected by Crain’s Cleveland Business as a 2026 Notable Leader in Accounting, Consulting & Law.

Read Hinshaw partner Jennifer Driscoll’s analysis in Global Competition Review on the significant antitrust challenge to Paramount’s proposed acquisition of Warner Bros.

Read Akeela White’s analysis of a debt collector’s petition asking the U.S. Supreme Court to clarify three Fair Debt Collection Practices Act questions.

Read a Law360 “Expert Analysis” article by Hinshaw colleagues Megan Ryan and Sam Bodurtha, which analyzes Massachusetts’ new consumer protection regulations targeting “junk fees” and deceptive pricing practices.

Hinshaw proudly serves as a Diamond Sponsor of the Mortgage Bankers Association’s Legal Issues and Regulatory Compliance Conference in Miami from May 4 to 7, 2026.

Boston-based partner Geoffrey Coan will be a panelist at the Bench-Bar Leadership CLE, "Controlling eDiscovery: Discovery Issues Unique to Mass-Tort MDLs," on March 13, 2025, at the Charleston School of Law in Hilton Head Island, South Carolina.

Hinshaw partners Justin Penn, David Schultz, and Vaishali Rao will present at the firm-sponsored ARM Law conference in Nashville, Tennessee. On Tuesday, September 17, Schultz will co-present a panel on "TCPA Compliance Update: Navigating Recent Rulings." On Wednesday, September 18, Penn and Rao will respectively present on panels titled "Litigation Update" and "Interacting with Regulators: Strategies for Positive Outcomes."

Hinshaw partner Akeela White will present during the Accounts Recovery webinar, “Breaking Down the Most Common FCRA Disputes You're Seeing Right Now — and What to Do With Them,” on June 5 at 12:00 PM CST.

Hinshaw partner Justin Penn will co-present an AccountsRecovery.net webinar titled "Dealing with Pro Se Litigants," on November 6, 2025. 

Hinshaw partner Justin Penn will co-present an AccountsRecovery.net webinar titled “Dealing with Sovereign Citizen Situations” on September 12, 2025.

Learn about the Seventh Circuit’s significant ruling holding that text messages are not considered “calls” under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA).

Learn key takeaways from a recent district court ruling that clarified the distinction between clickwrap and browsewrap agreements, finding that one, but not the other, manifested an intent to arbitrate disputes. 

Read how the US Supreme Court is set to define “consumer” under the VPPA, reshaping tracking‑tool class actions and signaling broader compliance risks for the consumer financial services industry.

We recently attended the International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP) 2024 Global Summit. The event provided great insights into privacy, artificial intelligence (AI), and regulatory issues, and we wanted to share those with our readers. Here are our top four takeaways from the conference:

New Hampshire is the fourteenth state with a comprehensive privacy law, as signed by Governor Sununu on March 6, 2024. The new law will go into effect on January 1, 2025. Continue reading for our Q&A on the "trusted" number 14!

The Illinois Genetic Information Privacy Act (“GIPA”) was enacted in 1998, and although minimal litigation followed in the years following its enaction, we are now seeing a significant surge in litigation similar to that experienced under the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (“BIPA”).

On February 8, 2024, the United States Supreme Court issued a unanimous decision in Department of Agricultural Rural Development Rural Housing Service v. Kirtz by holding that a consumer may sue the government under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (“FCRA”) for providing false information to the credit reporting agencies.

In Hunstein v. Preferred Collection and Management Services, the Eleventh Circuit drastically altered the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act landscape when, in April of 2021, it determined that the statute was implicated when a debt collector used a third-party vendor to mail notices (violating the FDCPA's prohibition of relaying information about the debtor to a third party). Since then, the case has been subject to both a petition for rehearing and a petition for rehearing en banc, and a decision has been eagerly awaited—particularly in the wake of the intervening Supreme Court TransUnion v. Ramirez decision, which seemingly undercut the original Hunstein decision's reasoning.

On Friday, June 25, 2021, the U.S. Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision, reversed and remanded TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez back to the Ninth Circuit. Justice Kavanaugh delivered the opinion of the Court and he was joined by Justices Alito, Barrett, Gorsuch and Chief Justice Roberts. The Court decided the question of whether Plaintiff can establish Article III standing without suffering a concrete harm aside from simply alleging a violation of a federal statute, which provides for the recovery of statutory damages. The Court also decided whether each putative class member must establish Article III standing to assert a claim for statutory damages.

We share news of a significant defense victory before the Illinois Supreme Court in a claim involving the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA). In a case argued by Hinshaw partner John Ryan, the Supreme Court handed down the first employer-friendly decision in any BIPA case it has considered. The issue before the Court was whether "Section 301 of the Labor Management Relations Act (29 U.S.C. §185) preempt Privacy Act claims (740 ILCS 14/1) asserted by bargaining unit employees covered by a collective bargaining agreement?"

Yesterday, the Illinois Supreme Court held that the Illinois Workers' Compensation Act's exclusive remedy provisions do not bar employees from filing lawsuits in civil court against their employers for alleged violations of the Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA), when no other injury is alleged. McDonald v. Symphony Bronzeville Park, LLC, 2022 IL 126511. 

The Illinois state legislature passed the Biometric Information Privacy Act in 2008. The law, known as BIPA, covers and regulates private employer use of biometric identifiers and biometric information of Illinois employees. Local and state governmental employers are specifically exempted.

Welcome to the Labor & Employment Chronicle, our quarterly newsletter that reviews the top stories from Hinshaw's Employment Law Observer blog.

BIPA: Employer Obligations, the Risks of Noncompliance, and What Comes Next

Download or read the complete newsletter here: Consumer Financial Services Newsletter