TOM JAMES serves as the Senior Assistant Attorney General in the Consumer Fraud Bureau of the Office of the Illinois Attorney General where he holds the position of Consumer Counsel. Tom has been a litigator in that Office since 1988 and has extensive knowledge of major federal and state consumer protection statutes. In recent years he has concentrated on credit-related unfair and deceptive financial practices and associated anticompetitive market behavior. He's participated on various regional and national multi-state enforcement teams specializing in cases against individuals and institutions engaged in sales and marketing misrepresentation, predatory price distortion, wealth and equity stripping, fair-lending violations, and structural unfairness and loan product abuse in the home-loan and mortgage-lending, consumer-credit and securitization markets. Tom's also worked extensively in drafting commentary, statutes and regulations in collaboration with legislative staff, not-for-profit organizations, major community banking and state bank associations, and state and federal regulators. He helped draft the Illinois High Cost Home Loan Act of 2004, the Illinois Foreclosure Rescue Fraud Act of 2007, and the Illinois Consumer Installment and Payday Loan Reform Act of 2010. Tom is a past member of the Federal Reserve Board's Consumer Advisory Council. Before becoming a lawyer, Tom worked as a housing counselor for the Leadership Council for Metropolitan Open Communities in Chicago where he assisted inner-city public housing tenants relocate to privately-owned residential units on a metropolitan-wide basis. Tom earned his J.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, and is licensed in California and Illinois.