If you run compliance or operations at a bank or credit union, you probably don’t need a lawyer for every TCPA demand letter. You do need to know, before the first class action lands, who you would call. Picking counsel in the middle of a deadline is how institutions end up with a firm that knows class actions but not servicing calls, or knows banking regulation but not dialer logs.
Here’s how operators at financial institutions tend to approach it: understand what your exposure actually looks like, build a short list of firms with public TCPA defense practices, and get your own records in shape so whichever firm you hire can move fast.
What TCPA claims against banks and credit unions usually involve
Financial institutions don’t typically get sued over cold-call telemarketing. The fact patterns are more operational:
- Servicing and collections calls to a number that has changed hands since the member gave it to you.
- Texts that continue after an opt-out, often because a STOP reply was honored in one system but not another.
- Fraud and account alerts sent to numbers without the right consent. The FCC’s revised rules, scheduled to take effect November 25, 2026, widen the fraud-alert exemption, which is relevant to how banks and credit unions structure these messages.
- Marketing offers for loans or cards layered onto informational channels. Under the new rules, revoking consent for marketing still covers all marketing, while informational opt-outs become category-specific.
- Repeat filers: plaintiffs and attorneys who bring these cases over and over, sometimes against several institutions at once.
When you interview counsel, walk them through which of these is most likely for you. Their answer tells you more than a firm brochure does.
The prevention layer counsel will ask about
The last bullet above is the one you can do the most about before anyone sues. TCPALitigatorList.com maintains a database the company says covers more than 600,000 names, including serial litigators, multi-case plaintiffs, demand-letter senders and attorneys, updated every weekday. Institutions can upload member call lists in bulk or use a real-time API that blocks a call or text when a number matches, and the company also scrubs against federal and state DNC lists. Other providers, such as PossibleNOW (which also handles Reassigned Numbers Database queries) and Contact Center Compliance, offer litigator screening within broader compliance suites.
Defense counsel will routinely ask what controls you had in place. “We screen every outbound list against known TCPA filers and query the Reassigned Numbers Database” is a far better answer than “we rely on the dialer.”
Firms with public TCPA defense work relevant to financial services
These firms maintain TCPA defense or litigation practice pages, or publish on TCPA issues affecting lenders, based on their own public materials. This is not a ranking, and no firm here has endorsed this article.
- Troutman Amin LLP — a TCPA-focused firm led by Eric Troutman, who also runs the TCPAWorld blog and speaks frequently on lender exposure.
- Severson & Werson — a financial services litigation firm that publishes regularly on TCPA issues such as consent and pleading.
- Holland & Knight — lists both a TCPA Class Action Litigation practice and a Financial Services Litigation practice.
- Womble Bond Dickinson — describes a TCPA litigation defense and compliance practice.
- Manatt — describes a TCPA compliance and class action defense practice and publishes TCPA Connect updates.
- Kelley Drye — maintains a TCPA defense practice page and publishes on TCPA litigation strategy.
- Polsinelli — lists a Telephone Consumer Protection Act litigation practice.
For a wider list organized by practice and location, tcpadefenseattorneys.net is a directory of TCPA defense attorneys.
Questions that separate good fits from generic ones
- How many TCPA matters involving banks, credit unions or lenders has the team handled recently, and were they single-plaintiff or class?
- How do they approach early resolution of repeat-filer demands versus fighting them?
- Who on the team reads dialer and texting-platform data, and do they use outside experts for it?
- How are they preparing clients for the November 25 consent-revocation changes?
- What does a typical budget look like for a demand letter, an individual suit and a putative class action?
Many institutions keep two names on file: a TCPA-focused firm for class exposure and a lower-cost option for individual demands.
The packet to have ready before you call anyone
Whatever firm you choose, the first week goes faster if your team can produce these quickly:
- Every system that can call or text a member: core, collections, marketing, fraud, any vendor.
- Where consent is captured and stored for each, and how revocations flow between them.
- Your National DNC scrub cadence (at least every 31 days for telemarketing) and your Reassigned Numbers Database usage.
- Litigator scrub logs showing when lists were screened and what was suppressed.
- Vendor contracts with indemnity terms for any third party that sends messages for you.
If you don’t have scrub logs yet, start building them now. A sample list and demo scrub from TCPALitigatorList.com will show how many known filers are already in your member contact data, which is useful to know whether or not you ever need the lawyer.
This article is general information, not legal advice. Talk to qualified TCPA counsel about your institution’s situation. Disclosure: this publication has a business relationship with TCPALitigatorList.com. Vendor details are drawn from each company’s public materials as of November 2026.