The law firm of Buckey Sandler has announced a new licensing product, called Approved, which will be offered to financial services organizations, including debt collectors, manage the process of obtaining and maintaining state licenses.
“Licensing can be a puzzling and costly process for companies, their management, and their investors,” said Buckley Sandler Co-Managing Partner John P. Kromer, in a statement. “By combining the top-flight talent of Buckley Sandler lawyers and licensing professionals with process enhancements and technology solutions, we intend to reduce the pain points in the licensing process and achieve better outcomes for our clients, all at a lower cost.”
The product is being managed by Tim Lange, who joined Buckley Sandler after nine years as the senior director for policy at the Conference of State Bank Supervisors.
Many states have licensing requirements for debt collectors. Most recently, the state of Oregon instituted a new licensing requirement for debt buyers while also making changes to the licensing requirements for debt collectors. As well, Maine recently announced changes its state Fair Debt Collection Practices Act related to licensing requirements.
Approved will be based on a fixed-fee pricing model, thus removing the “uncertainty” that comes from hourly billing, the firm said.
“We’ve combined the knowledge, experience, and legal skills of a preeminent financial-services law firm with the efficiencies of a technology company and the bottom-line focus of a licensing company in a regtech business that is the new standard in licensing,” said Lange. “The Approved team has decades of legal and licensing experience, and has successfully represented the full spectrum of the nation’s financial services companies.”
