Hovatter, Debra Lee

Debra Lee Hovatter Member Morgantown, W.Va. 304.291.7951 dhovatter@spilmanlaw.com

Ms. Hovatter’s primary areas of practice are consumer finance litigation and bankruptcy. She is co-chair of the firm’s Consumer Finance Litigation Practice Group.

Representative Experience

• Defend and counsel financial institutions, including banks, mortgage companies and servicers, in single borrower, mass tort and putative class action matters involving state and federal consumer protection laws, including the Fair Credit Reporting Act, Truth in Lending Act, Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, and unfair and deceptive trade practices statutes
• Represent creditors and trustees in business and consumer bankruptcy proceedings and adversary proceedings
• As in-house counsel for CitiFinancial, Inc., SunTrust Mortgage, Inc., and Capital One Services, LLC:
  • managed large litigation dockets, including individual, complex and putative class action matters
  • advised consumer lending business lines, including operations, default servicing, capital markets, credit, audit and compliance, and information systems
  • developed loss mitigation strategies with mortgage servicing teams navigated complex legal issues for mortgage insurance rescission and repurchase teams
  • counseled a non-prime mortgage servicing company, covering default servicing, securitization, regulatory compliance, litigation management, and successfully negotiated sale of the business

Education

• Cornell University, B.S.
• University of Wisconsin, M.S.
• South Texas College of Law, J.D., summa cum laude

Admissions

• West Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania and Texas State Bars
• U.S. District Courts for the Northern and Southern Districts of West Virginia, and the District of Maryland

Publications

• Bankruptcy Fundamentals for the Financial Services Industry, A Handbook for Non-Lawyers, American Bankruptcy Institute, 2007
• Sommersdorf’s Progeny:  Can Wrong Credit Report Trigger a Debtor Claim under the Code?, XXVI ABI Journal  5, 14, June 2007.
• Qualified Plan Loans in Bankruptcy, XVIII ABI Journal 1, 16, February 1999
• Bankruptcy Court Ruling Good News for Agents, 31 Business Insurance 1, 161-16K, January 6, 1997
• Beyond the Tortured Meanderings:  Understanding Federal and State Tax Liens, VII Corporate Counsel Review 2, 79, November, 1988

Other

• AV® Preeminent™ Peer Review Rated by Martindale-Hubbell
• Member, Governing Committee for the Conference on Consumer Finance Law
• Frequent speaker at mortgage and consumer finance conferences