APPLIED COMPLIANCE TRACK: Selecting and Working with Outside Counsel

Michael Briggs

General Counsel, SVP of Human Resources, Mortgage Bankers Association

Michael Briggs is General Counsel and Senior Vice President for Human Resources at the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA), where he oversees the association's internal legal affairs, compliance, and human resources operations. He also oversees the MBA Opens Doors Foundation, MBA's 501(c)(3) foundation that provides mortgage and rental payment assistance to families with critically ill or injured children. Before joining the FDIC, Briggs was in private practice with Gordon Feinblatt LLC, a Baltimore firm where he represented community banks, credit unions, nonbank mortgage lenders and the Maryland Bankers Association. He also previously served as Chief Legal Officer of America's Community Bankers. Earlier in his career, he served as Assistant General Counsel for Regulatory Affairs at Bank of America Corporation and as Regulatory Counsel for Barnett Banks. Briggs is a former vice chair of the American Bar Association (ABA)'s Banking Law Committee and a longtime member of the ABA's Consumer Financial Services Committee. In addition, he is a member of the Maryland State Bar Association, the LGBTQ Bar Association of Maryland, Women in Housing and Finance, and ALLRISE DC, an organization formed in 2019 to focus on promoting gender equity in financial services.

John Grissom

Associate General Counsel and Executive Director, Wells Fargo Bank, N.A.

John Grissom is an Executive Director and Associate General Counsel of the Consumer Lending Division withing the Wells Fargo Legal Department. He has been with the firm for 25 years, specializing in Mortgage Servicing. He has worked on the National Mortgage Settlement, class actions involving the firm, and currently manages a team of 9 legal professionals dealing with default servicing.

Monika L. McCarthy

Managing Director & General Counsel, CrossCheck Compliance LLC

Monika brings her passion for building relationships and connecting people to the company’s business development activities. Her unique experience as both in-house counsel and outside counsel working with public, private and start-up companies enables her to add valuable insight to CrossCheck’s engagements with mortgage companies, banks, credit unions and fintech companies. Her work frequently involves partnering directly with in-house counsel and outside counsel to provide strategic advice and help clients both mitigate risk and cost effectively scope engagements. As general counsel, Monika advises the firm on ethics, conflicts of interest, governance, internal controls, risk management issues, contracts, and vendor management and provides guidance on client matters.

Carlos Pelayo

Chief Legal Officer, Mr. Cooper

Carlos Pelayo serves as Executive Vice President and Chief Legal Officer for Mr. Cooper Group Inc. (NASDAQ: COOP), with primary responsibility for advising the Company’s senior leadership on all legal and regulatory issues, as well as overseeing the organization’s Legal department and managing all corporate governance activities. He joined the company in February 2023 with more than 20 years of experience in the legal field. Carlos has extensive expertise in financial services and regulatory compliance. Prior to joining Mr. Cooper he served as Managing Director and Legal Executive for Merrill Lynch Wealth Management, a division of Bank of America where he was a senior advisor to business leadership providing day-to-day legal, regulatory and strategic advice to all client-facing areas of the business, including the international, institutional and ultra-high-net-worth segments. Prior to Merrill, he served as Managing Director and General Counsel for Barclays’ investment-driven private banking business in the Americas. Earlier in his career, he worked in a private law practice, served as a law clerk and before law school, he worked as a management consultant with a global advisory firm.