Biography
Recruited in 2017 by Attorney General Josh Shapiro to start the nation’s first “mini CFPB,” Nicholas Smyth manages investigations and litigation of 12 to 15 attorneys involving student lending, mortgages, auto finance, payday lending, debt collection, credit reporting, debt settlement, scams, and COVID-related price gouging. Working closely with other states and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), Smyth’s team has obtained over $334 million in relief for Pennsylvania consumers. Public lawsuits and settlements include Navient (M.D. Pa), Wells Fargo, Equifax, Citibank, Think Finance (E.D. Pa), and Dominion Management (Phila. Ct. Com. Pl.). In June 2019 Smyth testified before the U.S. House Committee on Financial Services about student loan servicing. He was elected to the American Law Institute in 2020. From 2014 to 2020, he was the Vice Chair and then Chair of the American Bar Association’s Federal and State Trade Practices Subcommittee, part of the Consumer Financial Services Committee.
Earlier in his career, Smyth spent four years as a CFPB Enforcement Attorney. He was the fourth employee at the CFPB, having previously worked at the U.S. Department of the Treasury on the team of attorneys that, working closely with Congressional staff, drafted and revised the Consumer Financial Protection Act (Title X of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act). Before joining the Office of Attorney General, Smyth worked for an auto finance company owned by Uber and for Reed Smith LLP. He earned his B.A. and J.D. from Harvard. He was born in Ireland and grew up in Pittsburgh, where he resides with his wife and two daughters.