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Deep conversations with underrated lawyers.
This is Quorum with Quorum's Quorum. My guest today is Samuel Levine, is the director of the Bureau of Consumer Protection at the FTC. Sam is a true believer in consumer welfare and public advocacy. It would be a big mistake to look at his Harvard Law credentials and title and assume his career has been this strategic arc to power. If there's one lesson for lawyers in this episode, it's getting your hands dirty.
Khurram Naik:Here's Sam. So, Sam, thanks so much for taking the time to sit down with me today. I'm really looking forward to this conversation.
Samuel Levine:It's great to be here. Thanks for having me.
Khurram Naik:So, I'm gonna do something that I don't typically do and take a very chronological approach to your career because I think every step, has some interesting premonitions for the coming parts of your career, there's still really interesting jumping off points at each of those stages. So the first thing I wanna start about, talking about is your time in City Year. So I I lived in Chicago at the time that you were in it, and I know the City promoted a lot. So it was about a year that you spent in the program. Can you talk a little bit about the program and the impact it had on on North trajectory to to law school?
Samuel Levine:Yeah. City Year is an incredible program. Many people have heard of AmeriCorps. City Year was in some ways the precursor to AmeriCorps. It was a national service program founded in the late eighties.
Samuel Levine:And AmeriCorps was in many ways modeled off the model of City Year. And that model was drawing people from a very diverse background, people who were dropped out of high school, people who were mid college, people who had graduated college and were heading to grad school, which was my circumstance. Very diverse group of people recruited to serve the communities in different ways. I was working in City Gear Chicago where the primary mission was educational. We were not teaching in classrooms, which is sort of more akin to the Teach For America model.
Samuel Levine:What we were doing is we were playing a support role. So I was doing a literacy tutoring throughout the day, generally one on one. I ran an after school program after school, which was with, I think, dozens of kids, which was sometimes a lot of fun, sometimes incredibly stressful, and made me question whether I could ever be a teacher. And then when we weren't in the school, we were doing other service projects. City Year Pioneer doing service on Martin Luther King Day.
Samuel Levine:We would do random assignments like cleaning buses and doing customer service for the city. There was really a culture of service in City Year that inspired me and so many of my colleagues and just introduced me to people from walks of life who I don't think I ever would have met any other way. So I could not recommend the City Year experience more highly for people who care about the world, care about public service, and just wanna work with a great group of people.
Khurram Naik:Have you kept in touch with any of the people that were near here?
Samuel Levine:Oh, sure. I was just in touch over the weekend actually with someone who I had not spoken with since City Year, but other friends who I made there, I'm I'm still in touch with all the time. You really when you're in the trenches and and, you know, sometimes challenging situations, very low pay, you really become very close with people, and those are connections I've spent over the last the rest of my life.
Khurram Naik:Yeah. And I I certainly had that when I worked on political campaign, which is very similar to that as a field organizer. And, yeah, it's very low pay, very long hours, very stressful, and, yes, it's a bonding experience like like no other, for sure.
Samuel Levine:It's not just that. We had to wear uniforms every day, which I don't know if you maybe you had to wear a suit or something, but we we had to wear uniforms every day to work. You've probably seen people in city or uniforms on the train. When we were on the train, we always had to stand up for people, which is the right thing to do. I learned a valuable lesson in etiquette in the city.
Samuel Levine:Could not chew gum. I was it was very regimented how a city or a corps member was to present themselves, so it was quite the experience.
Khurram Naik:How do you feel about that part?
Samuel Levine:You know, I I think it made a lot of sense. The what's so unique about City Year in contra and I I I don't wanna say anything ill about other service programs is it it was not just drawing from sort of elite students from top universities. So the goal of City Gear Chicago, for example, was that the demographics of the organization should reflect the demographics of the city. And that was true in City Gear chapters all over the country. So I think part of the idea of having a uniform was an equalizer.
Samuel Levine:We came from very different backgrounds. I mean, truly eye opening in in so many ways. But when we all put on that uniform, I mean, is the same principle that the army uses, lots of, you know, school uniforms. I mean, this basic principle that we're all wearing this uniform, we're all equal, and we're all reminded of when on that uniform representing city year and we have to behave in a certain way. So, you know, I did not always love it.
Samuel Levine:It was not fashionable. It did not fit well. It was not particularly comfortable. It was very hot in the summer. But I think it really served the interests of the organization.
Samuel Levine:I still keep my uniform probably in closet.
Khurram Naik:And I wonder, have you ever thought about some application to the practice of the law? I mean, so much about law is there's bar associations, and there's you know, your comments are, like, regulated, you know, at the state level. And so there are standardized aspects of practice in that way. But do you have you ever thought about applying something like to the practice of law where there's some standard experience that no matter what your background or what your trajectory is, maybe you're hitting big law, maybe you're heading to a small family law firm, that you have a standardized experience that you're all doing something that's public service minded. Of Of course, you got pro bono culture in the practice of law as well.
Khurram Naik:Have you ever thought of any application like that?
Samuel Levine:In a way, you know, far be it for me to impose, you know, my my view on on law students. But I I think if you're going into law, you should know how the law operates for poor people. I I I really believe that very strongly. When you go through law school courses and you read cases I mean, it depends on the course, but certainly in your one hour curriculum, you're not really always hearing about how the law actually operates on the ground for the people who have to deal with it, for the people who can't get fancy lawyers, for the people whose housing is on the line, whose government benefits are on the line. You know, you learn all of these rules of evidence, but if you go into any, say, unemployment hearing in some local administrative forum in a city, it doesn't look like that.
Samuel Levine:You learn about the rules of civil procedure, and you look at what the eviction process looks like in a natural housing court. It doesn't look like how you learn it in school. So I do worry as people advance in their legal careers and gain power, if they don't actually have exposure to how the law feels, how it operates for the vast majority of Americans who can't afford real lawyers and for whom the stakes is not some victory on on a resume, but is their home, is their government benefits, is their livelihood, is their family. When people don't have that, I I worry that they don't understand the power of the law and how important it is that it operate with fairness.
Khurram Naik:And so I I think that relates to a key experience that you had in law school at the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau. And so can you tell me how you chose to there's lots of outlets for you in law school. How did you choose that clinic, and how did it compare to other, say, clinics or other experiences you had in law school?
Samuel Levine:Yeah. Certainly. So as I think this is true in most law schools, we we couldn't do clinics at the one o, But I did get involved in my first semester of my one l year in a group called Project No One Leaves. It was founded about, I think, two years before I I started school. People thought it was a project for like, the prison pop the incarcerated population, which I don't know why you would join a group called no one leaves, but, you know, to each to each their own.
Samuel Levine:But, of course, that's not what it was about. What it was about is this was 02/2009. There was a foreclosure, displacement, eviction crisis raging across the country and in Boston where I was living. Massachusetts had a unique foreclosure it's not that unique. It's true in about half the states in the country, but I think it surprises people.
Samuel Levine:Has nonjudicial foreclosure, so banks could foreclose on your home without ever taking you to court. And the idea of project no one leaves was for one else to get in a car on a, generally, on a Saturday morning, and we we would we would go through the newspaper, and we would look for every house listed that for for which there'd be a foreclosure auction. Again, no court process for a foreclosure. An auctioneer would show up in people's front yards and auction off people's homes. So we would scan the newspaper every week.
Samuel Levine:We and our goal, which we met most of the time, was to stop by every house in Boston facing foreclosure and encourage the folks living in that house to not leave and to instead go to an organizing meeting at a group called City Life Vida Urbana. And I started doing that every week. And I you know, maybe we can get into this later. It was if you didn't live through that time or if you didn't see how working class neighborhoods felt and looked during the time, it was hugely eye opening for me, and I had just been working on the South Side Of Chicago and the city. It was still a huge deal eye opening for me because by this time in 02/2009, and you had nonjudicial foreclosure, so it was moving very quickly, you had whole blocks of property after property was facing foreclosure.
Samuel Levine:You faced displacement of the entire neighborhood. So this immediately, I mean, piqued my interest is is is an understatement. I mean, I I felt deeply distressed about what I was seeing, and I was deeply curious about while I was sending all these people to these city life meetings, these organizing meetings, what what are those actually like? So we can we can get into that later if you're interested. But long story short, I started going to the city life organizing meetings in addition to doing the canvassing door to door.
Samuel Levine:And I realized that some of the folks, leading folks, providing legal services to people facing foreclosure were in the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau. So a word on that. Harvard Legal Aid Bureau is unique. Most clinics at HLS and generally are one semester. HLAB is a two year commitment.
Samuel Levine:It's something you apply for at the end of your 1L year. You can apply for law review. You can apply for HLAB. You can't do them both. You have to choose one of them.
Samuel Levine:Famously, Barack and Michelle Obama. Barack did Harvard Law Review. Michelle did the Legal Aid Bureau. Michelle made the right choice because the Legal Aid Bureau, what made it so unique is it was, in addition to the great foreclosure work it was doing, but it was a student run legal clinic. There were clinical advisers who were faculty, but the organization was run by students.
Samuel Levine:The cases we chose, the members we selected, the strategy in the cases, it was a student run clinic. So that's sort of how I got involved in in HLAB, and I immediately pivoted unsurprisingly to to the work they do on housing.
Khurram Naik:Can you say some more about that population difference? Was it a timing issue for what had happened to the economy in the in the year that you, you know, transpired between when you were working in South Side
Samuel Levine:Of Chicago versus, these neighborhoods in in the Boston area? What neighbors in the Boston area? What neighborhoods? Dorchester, Roxbury, to some extent, Jamaica Plain, though by that time, it was it was it was pretty gentrified, but we did we had our organizing meetings in JP. But we went to other I mean, we we went we we went to towns outside of Boston too.
Samuel Levine:You know, we we weren't able to reach every house. I I had clients I remember I had a client in Summerville. I had a client in I'm now forgetting the name of town that was outside Boston, but it was not just in Boston. I think the big thing that changed from when I was work so I was working in Chicago o 8, O9. That's right.
Samuel Levine:It's O8O9. And then my one o, look, my first year of law school was nine to ten. So I think two big differences. I was seeing the signs of financial distress in Chicago. Certainly, people were leaving their homes, losing their homes, including people I was working with.
Samuel Levine:But Illinois has judicial foreclosure. And pretty famously at that famously in in my world, the foreclosure process in Illinois was pretty slow. Again, banks were bullying many people just to leave, but if you actually stayed in their home and fought back, the you had to go to court. There was a long process. Massachusetts had nondeductal foreclosure.
Samuel Levine:And by the time I was there, it was 02/2009, 02/2010. And even though the financial crisis kicked off in o eight, I would say with the collapse of Lehman Brothers in September, the effects really started to cascade in 02/2009. So what I saw on the streets of Boston was actually far worse than what I was seeing in in Chicago, and it was it was deep like, as I said, deeply distressing.
Khurram Naik:And say some more about the organize you said, you know, you you the the organization that you encourage people to join and that you were learning from, and that was the the precursor to HLAB. Say some more about about that experience because you're saying there there's there's more to that.
Samuel Levine:Well, so the two two so three different organizations. There's HLAB. There's Project Noblem Leaves, which is a group of students who go out. And I should say not just at Harvard. It was founded there, but Northeastern was very active.
Samuel Levine:Suffolk Law participated. BU. It's there was a bunch of us in Las Cruces. So that's Project Noblem Leaves. And then there's a third organization, which is not student run.
Samuel Levine:It's run by organizers to this day, City Life. And City Life was a really this was around the same time in 2009 when people had been making fun of Barack Obama for being a former community organizer. But I was City Life was a group of community organizers, and that's not just a a term I'm throwing around. These were professional, experienced, dedicated community organizers. And I will never forget my my first meeting there and and just about every meeting subsequent.
Samuel Levine:But the way it works is you go into a room. It's in this former Sam Adams brewery in the Jamaica Plain, And it's a big group of people. Most of them are people of color, but it was it was very diverse both among the organizers and among the folks who were coming to the meetings. And the meeting would start where by asking new members to stand up and say, my name is Sam Levine, and I'm in foreclosure. And, of course, what's or I'm facing foreclosure.
Samuel Levine:And, of course, what stood out to me at the time was how much this felt like like an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. Right? I'm Sam being an alcoholic. And I thought at first, that's kind of odd. But when you think about it, it's actually it it's it's it's not odd at all.
Samuel Levine:It makes a lot of sense. One of the things I saw as a want when I was going door to door is I would tell people they were, you know, your house is facing foreclosure, they would say, no. No. No. No.
Samuel Levine:No. Not nothing is it. We're we're working it out. We're working it out. Sometimes that was true.
Samuel Levine:Sometime, I would learn later. Sometimes they were maybe in denial about it, which is totally understandable. And a lot of the time, they were just ashamed. And how could why why would I even come to the door and suggest that they were behind on their mortgage? You know, not realizing this is in the newspaper.
Samuel Levine:So what you saw in city life was there was a lot of shame that I think people felt about struggling with their mortgage. Some of these some of these folks were working class, middle class, some of them, by all appearance, were more affluent people who had never experienced this kind of financial distress. And it was, you know, as with my uniform in city year, I think it was a real way to unite people to stand up and say, I'm facing foreclosure. The bank's not returning my calls. They're not returning my faxes.
Samuel Levine:Everyone stood up and said that, and it it made a it opened people up. One of the things that I reme I don't think it was my first time going, but I remember one time going, two people who were neighbors did not know they were facing foreclosure, realized they were dealing with the same thing. We even saw that with the we had relatives both coming to the same meeting. And it was incredibly I mean, again, at the time, people would be making fun of community organizing. Like, don't now I think it's more recognized that it's powerful vehicle for social change.
Samuel Levine:I don't think it was sufficiently appreciated then, but I I I really saw because you had this big group of people, and the the idea was people power. Like, we are gonna work as a collective to try to demand Massachusetts change its laws, to demand the Obama administration make it easier to modify mortgages and and write down principal, to show up at eviction court, which we should talk about, but show up at eviction court. When people went to hearings who were part of City they did not go alone. They did not go alone. They were joined by legal advocates like me and others.
Samuel Levine:And they had in the in the seats behind the court behind the bar, they had their friends and neighbors from City Gear there to support them. So this was really about providing support and a sense of community for people who were otherwise feeling very desperate and isolated. I know I'm going on and on, but books should be written about, in my opinion, about the on the ground movement to stop mass displacement in Boston during this period because it was inspiring.
Khurram Naik:And I think we'll wanna pick up on this bottom up approach to work because I think that also affects legal practice, and I think it'll also influence the decisions that lawyers can make early or otherwise with how to make decisions about, what to pursue in their career. I think it's I've been very strategic in my career in different stages and been very top down at times or often, I would say. And I think but there I think it's also true that I've also used bottom up techniques as well. And so I I think that's gonna be an interesting theme to explore is the things that you learn from being boots on the ground about and and how that's influenced the career decisions you made and the what anyone would see, the objective success you've had in your career can be attributable to to that technique and not some strategic gutting for the spot that you're in today. Right?
Khurram Naik:Right. So so let's spend some more time on on HLAB then. So then was it a no brainer for you to to to choose HLAB versus any other commitment you could choose to make?
Samuel Levine:Yes. It was a no brainer. I it wasn't a no brainer. I was gonna get in. It it was to and, you know, a lot of people applied, but I I really wanted to do it.
Samuel Levine:I'd be remiss to not mention that the clinical director of Aderstrom, again, student run group, but there was a clinical director who was a professor, David Grossman. He had been you know, we had as at one L's, we were we could request a faculty mentor, and he was the mentor that I requested. Part of the reason going to age lab was a no brainer is I got to know Dave, who's both the I should say, the clinical director of age lab and the and sort of the adviser to project no one leaves. So I would frequently be in the car with him around Boston, going around Boston neighborhoods. I hope we have an opportunity to talk about Dave.
Samuel Levine:He was I get emotional. He he passed away in 2015 far far too young. We started a fellowship in his name that goes on, but Dave was an inspiring, truly inspiring mentor to me and to so many other students who who really and he's the reason. He's the biggest reason I think I pursued HLAB. He was a great lawyer, but he he really saw the law as as a vehicle for justice, but not the only vehicle for justice.
Samuel Levine:He was a big believer in organizing. He was a big believer in people power. He was a big believer in a model we called the sword and the shield, where the lawyers would try to keep people in their homes, and the organizers would help push the banks to do better, push the legislators to do better. So Dave really sort of inspired me about the kind of legal career that I could have or that I wanted to have where I could be, I know, hopefully, a a force for social good. And, you know, because he was director of Ace Lab and he encouraged me to apply, and I very enthusiastically applied, and Dave became my mentor through the end of law school and and and beyond.
Samuel Levine:I'll never forget him.
Khurram Naik:You mentioned being in the car with Dave, and it strikes me that, you know, my understanding of other clinics and other kinds of ways to be involved in law school, you certainly have faculty contact, and it's business hours kind of a thing in an office situation, but it sounds very informal and potentially long hours. Is that unique to public interest work, or is that unique to age lab? Or how can otherwise people get that sort of quality of interaction with with mentors in in in law school?
Samuel Levine:I think it was unique to Dave Grossman. He was someone who had the most elite background imaginable. You know, he was a Harvard professor. He went to Harvard and, you know, just very he he could have done anything he wanted with with his career, but he chose to be a clinical professor and not just sit in a classroom and talk about his old days practicing law, but to really get involved day to day. I mean, if you look, I I sometimes go back to my emails from them.
Samuel Levine:We were emailing all by the time I was second and third year, said all hours of the I mean, late into the night, early into the morning. I mean, his his wife, who I now stay in touch with, and I I I think would complain a little about how how much time Dave and I would be in touch. He this was not a vocation for him. It was a true passion. He was a religious man.
Samuel Levine:He I think he thought of it as this Jewish concept of, this this mission we feel as Jews to to repair the world. Dave poured his life into this work. So, I mean, he there were Saturdays that I missed because I wanted to Dave was just about Dave was going every Saturday with my recollection, going door to door. You know, he had kids. He had a job.
Samuel Levine:And and not sort of supervising. He was in the car with me or with another student talking through what he was seeing and going to the doors and talking to folks who were facing for. He also led for New Age Lab students a bus tour of Chicago excuse me, of Boston so that people who maybe flew into Logan to go to Harvard, went up to Cambridge, and barely left, Actually got to see how Boston felt outside the confines of of Cambridge and Somerville. So Dave was very he poured his life into making the world a better place, but also into making law students, I think, better people and and inspiring them as he inspired me to pursue public interest career.
Khurram Naik:You know, you're saying something that strikes me about may maybe it is specific to public interest work. Because I remember on on a political campaign, worked for I worked as a field organizer, which is maybe, I would say, similar to being a community organizer. And there was, so there's somebody who is a manager, who who managed my team. He's a he was an experienced field organizer And Glenn Hurowitz. And so Glenn, he wasn't much older than me, but he he this is kind of his the the the focus of his career.
Khurram Naik:So he was he had already, progressed a lot. And the thing about Glenn is that he didn't just you know, he would sit down with us and and and talk through our strategy for outreach and and challenge us, frankly. So, I mean, there would be things like, oh oh, you know, I would sit down and say, hey. You know, I I I'm working with this one volunteer. She's amazing, and so, you know, here's the plan for how we're gonna work together.
Khurram Naik:I said, great. You know, how many hours has she worked right now? I said, oh, she's she's she's working five hours a week. Okay. Can you ask her to do 10?
Khurram Naik:I said, well, Glenn, she's one of my best field you know, one one of my best, you know, volunteers here. And I said, yeah. I mean, like, those are the people that can give the most. Your best are the people that can give the most. And so there's things like that I learned from him, and that's because he spent a lot of time with granular detail going through my work.
Khurram Naik:But then also, he was very willing to knock on doors, get on the phone himself as well. There wasn't anything that was too small for him. I've had a few managers like that that have been willing to get into the trenches, but what you just said strikes me that it's much less common to practice law. Right? Like, how often does a partner walk into a dissociative office and say, hey.
Khurram Naik:Let's sit down and look at this document again. Let's just go through these documents together. Think certainly that does exist, but it's way less common. So, yeah. And I don't know if it's specific to public interest or not, but I think that is a hallmark, I think, of a good manager.
Samuel Levine:Well, I I think law, unfortunately, is very hierarchical, and most of us sell our time so that the the those those incentives are not quite right for collaboration. But I will say to the point about you made about working those hours and making yourself known through that, And, hopefully, there's a lesson here. You know, I I was not, I don't think, the the smartest or most talented or most generous or, you know, to apply for HLAB or to participate in that project. I I think what did set me apart, I think, and what got Dave's interest is that I was consistent. I I I really came I told you I didn't go every Saturday, but I went the vast majority of Saturdays as a one l to do this work, and I went to meetings.
Samuel Levine:These were Tuesday night meetings very frequently. By the time I was in h lab, I was in court most at least once a week, usually more than once a week. So I I I do think there's great value, I think, in in any career people pursue. People put a lot of weight on test scores or how beautiful a brief is, which are all important, but showing up, being reliable, being hardworking, showing passion and commitment, there are trade offs there in your personal life, but I think in your professional life is really is really valuable as it was for you, it sounds like, on the campaign.
Khurram Naik:Mhmm. And so then tell me about how you came to work on foreclosure matters as the focus in Ace Lab. Were there other things you could have focused on? Was it just the most obvious thing because that's what your your first year involved? Tell me about that.
Samuel Levine:It was somewhat obvious because it was my first year involved. So the way HLAB works, that's different now, somewhat different now. But back then, you had a housing law. Basically, it was divided. Half the students do housing law, half the students do family law, and then everyone does a smattering of unemployment, veterans benefits, some other issues.
Samuel Levine:So it was very clear to me I I wanted to do housing, and I think they recognized it made sense for me to do housing. The leadership recognized it made sense for me to do housing. There was another divide interestingly within the housing group between people doing traditional housing work, which is rent paying tenants facing eviction and owners facing foreclosure or rent paying tenants living in foreclosed properties who are facing eviction as a result of foreclosure. And, you know, there were interesting debates in HLAB at the time about I don't know if people are interested in this beyond me, but about whether it's appropriate to be representing homeowners in in addition to renters. They often come from better economic circumstances.
Samuel Levine:But Dave and I both had pretty strong feelings about that, and I I I gravitated strongly toward doing the foreclosure work. And I I think I did some other work. I had I had some other I had other clients who were tenants. I did an unemployment case. I did some other stuff, but the overwhelming majority of my doc was foreclosure, and I represented many, many, many, many client I don't know the number, but certainly more than 20, probably more than 30 or 40 clients facing foreclosure excuse me, facing eviction as a result of foreclosure.
Khurram Naik:And so there was a, a path to you, getting some really unique experience and, actually, groundbreaking experience in this role. What what what was that path that led you to what what what was the outcome for you wanna give the spoiler now, and then what was the path that led you to that?
Samuel Levine:Well, we, as a law clinic, and, you know, I I certainly played a role in it, I mean, we changed Massachusetts law pretty significantly to make protections a lot stronger for people in foreclosure. Before I joined the clinic, HLAB brought one of the first cases. I think the first case is establishing that you can challenge a foreclosed so we have some lawyers listening, I presume. The way it works is is that you can foreclose without judicial process, so you can change the ownership from the homeowner to the to the lender or to whoever buys the property at auction, but then you still need to take someone to court to evict them to gain possession of the property. So we brought one of the first cases, and it went to the state supreme state supreme judiciary court, establishing that the validity of the foreclosure itself could be challenged at the eviction stage on a straightforward basis that if the foreclosure wasn't legal, it was void, and the subsequent owner had no right to evict the previous homeowner.
Samuel Levine:When I was there, the big question was, and those who lived through this might remember, you know, when you own a property, there's there's a note, which is the loan, and there's a mortgage, which is collateral on the note. It's the, you know, the the right to the property. Massachusetts law at the time, as it was being applied by the courts, was that lenders did not need to establish that they held the note in order to pursue foreclosure and eviction at in order to hold a foreclosure auction and pursue an eviction action against homeowners. We took the we took the positioning case after case that was not true, that we needed to show that you had a beneficial interest in the note, And we ended up winning the first ever in the state preliminary injunction against proceeding with an eviction on the basis that Fannie Mae could not demonstrate it held the promissory note. That case was quickly appealed by Fannie I should add, by the way, Fannie Mae at the time was in government conservatorship.
Samuel Levine:So this was us, you know, law students representing low income homeowners against the US government. Pretty shocking if you think about it. But, anyway, Fannie Mae appealed the case. The supreme judicial court ended up taking it suisponte, so it didn't even I think it was briefed at the Court of Appeals, but the SJC grabbed it because they realized the big implications. And I had the really unique opportunity at the beginning of my third year to argue a case before the Supreme Judicial Court.
Samuel Levine:We could talk about how that went, but it was incredibly unique experience. And it was honestly just one way that working with legal aid providers all over Boston, I think we really transformed the experience of people facing foreclosure. We we we designed model answers, model briefs. We set up lawyer for the day programs. I mean, it was a really multifaceted effort to strengthen protections for homeowners and also on the sword side, fight for fight for legal change at the legislature.
Khurram Naik:I mean, operationally, how did you manage this? Because on one hand, you're taking you know, you you have to focus your attention on this legally novel position and make sure this is well briefed and be prepared for for taking this to supreme court as kind of, like, you know, like, this very focused effort. By the other hand, you're focusing on scaling your efforts to make it replicable for other people to to do this as well. How did you how did
Samuel Levine:you manage about balance both those needs? It was a incredible model that you can't do in every court. So Massachusetts housing court allowed limited assistance representation. You could show up for a hearing and then you enter an appearance and then withdraw your appearance, or you could keep your appearance through you you there's flexibility around it, which, by the way, I'm I'm a big believer in because it allows there are never enough lawyers to help low income people in court. This allows us to expand our scale.
Samuel Levine:So what we would do, and I I was often the one doing this on on a on a Monday, we would go down to the housing court in Boston, and we would get the list of all the people facing eviction on Thursday. Thursday was eviction day when all the cases were being heard. We would we would reach out to those people at well, I think with the Monday was maybe the subsequent week. I don't remember the exact exact time. We would get the list on Monday.
Samuel Levine:We would send them letters encouraging them to come to City Life and encouraging them to find us in court. We would also try to find them at the organizing meetings on Tuesday night at City Life. And for clients like that, who I got to meet early on in the process, like this case I brought to the Supreme Judicial Court, I met that client through City Life. So, you know, I I knew a lot about her. We worked her name was Henrietta Eaton.
Samuel Levine:We worked together. It was it was a more traditional form of representation. But the other thing we did is we had those names on Monday. On on Wednesday night, you know, the day before court, I would look up public records of their foreclosures because this is all in their, you know, recorder of deeds. The foreclosures already happened, remember.
Samuel Levine:They were now facing eviction, and I would see if I can spot some problems. Maybe I knew that this particular mortgage trust had a history of illegal evictions. Maybe I saw and these these are all real examples. Maybe I saw that a signature on a or that a power of attorney on a foreclosure deed had expired, which under Massachusetts law, renders a foreclosure. But I I would look for issues in their foreclosure, And I would go to court the next day, and it wasn't just me.
Samuel Levine:It was a group of us. And we would we'd hear people's names called at the beginning of the hearing, and we would try to corner them and see if they would want representation. Now a lot of people, I mean, most people, or many people did not even show up. They got defaulted, which we really tried to prevent, but that that was a real struggle. But there were a lot of clients we met on the courthouse floor where I got up, and it wasn't or my colleagues got up, and we represented them having met them fifteen minutes before.
Samuel Levine:And the extent we saw their case file was like whatever envelope they brought and whatever we had seen the night before on the recorded deed. So it was this is not how a federal court, you know, and usually operates, but this is how things work in vixi court. You know, it's not as I said at the top, this is not the type of lawyering you learn in law school, but this is the type of lawyering that made a big difference in slowing down a mass displacement machine that would have otherwise been going at full throttle in Massachusetts.
Khurram Naik:And so then okay. So then you you took this matter to the Supreme Court, and you argued it, and you prevailed.
Samuel Levine:Well, it was interesting. Could I jump in on this? Yeah. It was we argued it in October. In December or January, the SJC, Supreme Court representative requested supplemental briefing on whether if they ruled in my client's favor, it would have a sort of cataclysmic effect on the housing market in Massachusetts because it would it would cloud title on all of these properties.
Samuel Levine:We argued very strongly that, you know, you have title insurance that can deal with that. These companies shouldn't get a break. Just because they just because banks broke the law at scale doesn't mean they should be unaccountable for breaking the law. But what the SJC did pretty interestingly, when they issued their ruling, they ruled in our favor, but they made it perspective only. It's set with respect to my client.
Samuel Levine:So they ruled that my client and Fannie Mae needed to show the note for closures going forward that needed to be proven, but had no effect retroactively, which, you know, I I think reflect another lesson for me at the kind of power large financial institutions have in our economy when they can break the law for years and have the SJC recognize it, and they don't have to face the consequences.
Khurram Naik:So what was the aftermath of of arguing? So so you had a a mixed victory, but certainly a victory.
Samuel Levine:Yeah.
Khurram Naik:Then what? What what for you professionally, then what?
Samuel Levine:I, you know, I continued my work. I wasn't gonna sit around waiting for the argument. You know, I I would I I mean, one effect on my casework. I mean, it was wonderful. Like, we we would we would go For months while that decision was pending, at least in the court, I was practicing evictions were not happening.
Samuel Levine:Because every case, I would go up there and I would say, well, you can't rule on this until the SJC rules and the Eaton case. These these evictions were not moving. We kept people in their homes for many months just just through that case being pending. But I, you know, I continued the work. I did a jury trial my second semester of my three l year, and that was actually a more traditional tenant case also against Fannie Mae.
Samuel Levine:Coincident not very coincidentally, actually, but, you know, Fannie Mae had had subjected my client to some horrible conditions in the apartment that she rented. We took that case to trial. We we we brought two counts. We one on one. We lost in the other, but, you know, we went it was it was a positive outcome for my client.
Samuel Levine:So I I stayed very busy throughout that year.
Khurram Naik:But what did it feel like? Okay. So you're just, like, lost. Yeah. And on one hand, you're doing this very grubby work.
Khurram Naik:It's just like you're just, like, very manual. You're you're walking up to a total stranger saying, can't I represent you? Any number of times, you're probably getting rejected or just like, what is this? Who is this weirdo? Like, what what is this?
Khurram Naik:Yeah. So just yeah. Thankless could be one word to use potentially, but just difficult work. Okay. So you're doing this difficult work, grubby work, whatever.
Khurram Naik:And then you have this impact where, like, okay. Like, there's this Supreme Court decision pending before it's even resolved. And, you know, the I'm assuming it's a rotating number of judges, but they probably know who you are at this point. And you're saying that everyone's case is, judge, and they can't rule until this this decision's resolved. Even at that stage, you had to be feeling this enormous amount of power of some kind.
Samuel Levine:Did you feel that, and and what did it feel like? Well, by the time I argued the case and afterward, it was pretty surreal, honestly. You know, I I was Katie Porter was a law professor at the time. I I worked with her on the case. I had been interviewed in the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg.
Samuel Levine:NPR did a story on it. Mad Desmond, who went on to write Evicted, came to shadow us in housing court and and speak to our class about the research he was doing. You know, by 02/2010, 02/2011, there was a lot of more attention on this issue. There was a lot more recognition of what was happening on the ground. And and and and for me, I I yes.
Samuel Levine:There there was more recognition of of, I think, what I and and and my colleagues had had been able to do. But I will say, you know, as a second year law student, I didn't have any of that. But what I did have, which I think was more fulfilling and more important, my first time appearing in court so this is, I guess, I don't know, beginning of my two l year. I mentioned to you that City Life sent organizers to these court hearings. I got up, and I I made you know, I was a high school and college debater.
Samuel Levine:I made an argument the only way I knew how to make. I made a really impassioned argument for why not holding a note and these other issues were not just technicalities. These were illegal foreclosures that my clients had had suffered a great injustice. And I did not win that. I mean, we ended up getting a continuance.
Samuel Levine:I didn't lose it. I didn't win it. But when I turned around, this is my first time in court, a group of people from the organizing meeting stood up and cheered. Now, again, that that is not why I I did it. That is not you know, if if anyone's going into law so they can show up in court and then get cheered after they sit down, they should find another profession because that doesn't happen very often.
Samuel Levine:But it was deeply fulfilling to me because what it made me feel like, and this is how we consciously talked about it, is I was not just representing one client. I was trying to represent this this movement, this organization. And, again, I I can't emphasize enough. This was not just me. I had many colleagues, including my colleague who's at the FTC now, Jen Tarr, right there with me, and many others fighting for people.
Samuel Levine:And to actually have that reaction, again, it meant a lot to me. A, because I was really nervous, I just stood up in a courtroom for the first time, but B, because it really made me feel like I was part of something broader than one case or one client. I was part of a movement to try to restore some measure of economic justice for people who had been denied it.
Khurram Naik:Mhmm. So where how did this direct your career? So you've had this extraordinary beginning of of a career, potentially even distortingly so. How did you have made contextualization for what comes next and what you could expect out of your career?
Samuel Levine:It took some twists. You know, in 02/2012, and I I I know you know this. Like, the the job market was not great. By that time, if you were going to a a good law school, the job market at top firms was was pretty decent, but it was pretty tough for public interest law. And I, you know, I had a good I I I had a good record at in law school.
Samuel Levine:I I had good grades. I had done interesting things in the clinic, so I think I was a strong candidate. But getting a public interest job was tough. I originally thought I wanted to do legal aid because it was what most resembled what I was doing on the ground and at the clinic. I ended up having a choice between doing I I I did not get every job I applied for at all, but I ended up being very fortunate to have a choice between doing a two year legal aid kind of fellowship in Chicago or going to the Illinois attorney general, which at the time was on the front lines of trying to negotiate the national mortgage settlement with the bank servicers, with the mortgage servicers.
Samuel Levine:And because I had done legal aid work the summer before and had obviously done a lot of legal aid work in Boston on on foreclosure work, When I met when I was interviewed at the Illinois AG, I remember sitting down with people like Debbie Hagan, who was the division chief, like Shali Rao. These were people like me who geeked out on mortgage law and foreclosure law. And I got to geek out right with them, which probably they were not used to in in a lawsuit. And I I knew some of the same advocates they knew. I knew the issues.
Samuel Levine:I knew, you know, we worked in different states, but we can really compare notes in a substantive way where I felt, even though I was a third year law student, you know, I I was not a peer, but I I had a conversation with them at that level. Like, I was not coming to this being like, I'm totally green. You should take a chance on me. It was no. I I have a track record of keeping people at their homes and fighting illegal foreclosures.
Samuel Levine:So I think that put me in a good position to work for the Illinois AAG, though I have to tell you what Dave Grossman told me, which is that I think he wanted me to work in legal aid. He said, you're going to work for the man. And I reminded him that the the AG, Lisa Madigan, was was a woman, in fact, and and was a real champion for consumers. But he ended up coming around to it, but it took some time.
Khurram Naik:So he he just wasn't believed, I mean, in in the state AG process. Like, he just felt like that was, like, captured by big business interests or something?
Samuel Levine:He didn't say that, but I think he was a movement lawyer to his core. He was trained by and mentored by Gary Bello, who was a he was a lawyer for Cesar Chavez and a a leader at Harvard Law School in the clinics. And and Dave Dave really was a believer in roundup change, in people power. I had a I had more of an open mind about government than than Dave did. I I I you know, toward the end of his life, I tried to convince him.
Samuel Levine:I'm not sure I ever did. But, I mean, he look. He was certainly pleased I was doing public interest work on on behalf of consumers. But, you know, I I think his ideal always would have been, you know, legal aid on the front lines, and I can certainly respect that.
Khurram Naik:So then paint a picture for was there anything that you directed in your course of work at the agency's office? Like, how like, you had such an active role in in the kind of work you did at HLAB. What level of activity were you able to have with directing the kind of work you did at the AG's office?
Samuel Levine:So when I started at the AG's office, I hadn't even passed the bar yet. Right? It was September or I think, yes, September 2012. So I was still waiting for my bar results. Fortunately, I passed the bar in October, but they put me right to work.
Samuel Levine:So part of the concepts here is I I came on to work on the mortgage settlement and mortgage work. But by the time I joined, the mortgage settlement had already been entered. The office was doing other needed me in other places. And what I ended up working on was a problem that felt eerily parallel to what I worked on on housing, which was for profit schools, predatory for profits, sometimes publicly traded colleges and universities. And I can talk about what that looked like in a minute, but the interesting thing about being at an AG, which I tell people all the time, is the AG did not have the luxury of having me sit in a corner doing doc review.
Samuel Levine:I started appearing in state court, I mean, within days of I mean, literal days of my passing bar. I was in you know, another great thing about state AG work was you're in state courts. State courts tend to have more hearings than federal I was in court a lot. I was taking depositions. I I think I took my first deposition as, like, a real lawyer.
Samuel Levine:I think it was before the end of the year. So I started in September. I think I I'm not sure of that. But it was very early on I started taking and defending depositions. So and, again, I think part of it is because they they saw some talent in me and some potential, and I had some real experience from HLAB.
Samuel Levine:Part of it was just like, these are small offices doing big things. They need every person they can get. They can't afford to have someone just sitting in a corner. So it's a wonder you know, the pay is not good. It wasn't then.
Samuel Levine:It isn't now. But if you wanna get actual experience as a lawyer, it's a wonderful place to work at a state AG.
Khurram Naik:And then what led you to leave the AG's office to clerk?
Samuel Levine:So the AG's office was an incredibly fulfilling experience. I if I could a brief digression about some of the for profit school work because I I think it's telling. You know, I I I described the mortgage foreclosure work as seeing sort of lenders telling people this is the path to the middle class, and this is the houses are sure things. We heard the same thing from for profit school operators. And just as in the foreclosure context, the federal government, I felt, was asleep at the wheel when it came to keeping stopping predatory lending and helping homeowners who got caught.
Samuel Levine:I felt the same way about for profit schools, about the Department of Ed needed to do a lot more to hold these schools accountable. But by 2014, 2015, we were really seeing a change in the Obama administration. Department of Ed was beginning to do, I think, serious investigations of for profit schools. They were working with us. They were moving forward on some very important rulemakings, one of which I participated in.
Samuel Levine:I I kind of felt that we we were winning. Things were going well. You know, some of the big the biggest chain that I was interested in, Corinthium, actually, I think collapsed in 2015 or 2016 as did ITT, two of, I think, the worst operators in history. And I felt it could be a good time to move on and do similar work, but at the federal government. I was interested in being in federal court.
Samuel Levine:I was interested in a salary that was a little more manageable than state government. I mean, the the pay differential was really dramatic. I was interested in challenging myself a little more. Problem was I had very little experience in federal court. So what I was told by some folks who worked in the federal government was go clerk.
Samuel Levine:That's how you get in spirit. I mean, you go to a law firm where you can go clerk. So I applied for a clerkship. I applied only in Chicago. I figured if I don't get a clerkship, I'll just keep him working at the AG.
Samuel Levine:That's fine. So I wasn't desperate. I applied for clerkships in Chicago, and I was lucky enough to find a clerkship with a really legendary judge, Milton Shader.
Khurram Naik:So I appeared before judge Shader. Think he
Samuel Levine:I'm sorry.
Khurram Naik:Yeah. One of the most remarkable judges that you'll could ever appear before. And at the time, I think he was already maybe 90 when I appeared. Right. And, yet, I don't think it's another judge that has all these, like, little trinkets and, like, on the desk of, like, old timey antique stuff that I never knew the significance of.
Samuel Levine:Yeah. And dolls. Yeah.
Khurram Naik:Yeah. A little yeah. That kind of stuff. But I I think what really struck about him is he was such an independent thinker. You know, he would, you know, challenge or just, like, things like, you know, if if you had a an answer to a complaint.
Khurram Naik:And Yeah. You know? You know? He he would challenge, like, you know, like, what do
Samuel Levine:you mean by information belief? Like, what Right. Right. What information do you have?
Khurram Naik:What is your belief? Like, you can't just
Samuel Levine:He was a rule a stickler.
Khurram Naik:Yes. So he was he was very anti anything formal. I can really challenge you to think hard and long about, you know, what you're, you know, what what you're putting into, what objections you're putting into, you know, responses to RFPs or just any of that stuff. So he was remarkable in that way, and I wonder what impact he made on you.
Samuel Levine:No. He was a remarkable judge. He passed away in 2017. He was maybe 94 years old. I mean, the man's career is legendary.
Samuel Levine:He was he enrolled I'm gonna get this wrong, but he enrolled at the University of Chicago Law School. I think he was, like, nine something very young, very young age. I think he became the youngest ever partner of a prominent smaller, but prominent firm in Chicago in the early fifties. One of his partners was Arthur Goldberg, who would go on to join the Supreme Court, become an ambassador. He represented Adlai Steve, you're a political history nerd.
Samuel Levine:Judge Shader actually represented Adlai Stevenson, who was the Democratic nominee for president in 1956 and 1952. So this gives you a sense of the of judge Shader's history. He he went and he was appointed to the bench in 1979 by by president Carter. So he had deep experience. I think he was a very, very principled, but also very pragmatic judge.
Samuel Levine:He was old school, both in terms of his, you know, real stickler on on the rules, did not like shortcuts that lawyers like to take, for example, in filing answers. He would routinely dismiss cases before I even got to the office because of some deficiency in the pleading, but he had a real strong sense of of justice as well. You know, we would we would have conversations, but I don't I don't think I'm revealing anything inappropriate. We're we're, you know, he, of course, would always follow the law, but he was a person too and and and had a sense of of of what was just. And, you know, he was not afraid to strike independent positions.
Samuel Levine:He was not afraid to take unpopular positions, which he sometimes did and got a lot of attention for. He was a real believer, and he loved being a district court judge. He loved being a trial judge. And I think it was a real loss to the bench when when he passed away well, when he first stepped down and then passed away. For me personally, I mean, I both got to know the federal courts better and how they work, and it's not that different in the rules than state court, but it feels very different than than at least Illinois state court.
Samuel Levine:He also just I think I was a good writer. He made me a much better writer. I mean, Jud Shader was a was a very good writer. And one thing I slowly got better at was learning to capture his voice, and I've I've actually incorporated a lot of it into you know, he had a rule. You could not start sentences with the, which was annoying as hell if you're trying to write a long opinion, but it forced you to use variety in your syntax that ended up making opinions a lot.
Samuel Levine:Now, of course, he gave he let himself break his own rule. He didn't really let his parts break his rule. So it forced you to be really imaginative in your syntax and made it from you read any of his opinions from a a short order to a lengthy ruling on summary judgment. There's a real verb in his writing that's both it's both deep and scholarly, but also a pleasure to read and very funny sometimes.
Khurram Naik:Yes. So so so from there, so you burnished your your your standing in federal court from this experience, and then how did you figure out what came next to you from there?
Samuel Levine:Well, it was natural. I I was a consumer protection lawyer at the Illinois attorney general. My job was enforcing Illinois' mini FTC Act, the prohibition on unfair, deceptive apps or practices. So when I you know, so I wanted to stay in Chicago, but I basically wanted to go to a consumer protection agency. So there aren't that many.
Samuel Levine:I looked at CFPB. I looked at FCC, and I looked at FTC. FTC was my top choice, and I got very, very lucky that they had a job opening and that they took a chance and and hired me. But I had, you know, I it was my it was my dream job. I was very excited to get it.
Khurram Naik:You you did some advocacy to make this happen, though. You didn't just you weren't
Samuel Levine:Oh, sure.
Khurram Naik:Yeah. So so what what is it that you did?
Samuel Levine:Sure. So, you know, when you apply for any federal job, you go through USAJobs, which probably has not gotten easier since I applied a decade a decade ago. You know, your your resume goes into a little bit of a black box. You don't really know what even now that I'm on the mix end of it, I don't always know what's happening at the The USA jobs level. But I I reached out to Harvard, and I I have to put in a word for Harvard's public interest office of public interest advising led at the time by Alexa Chabakov, who was the assistant dean of the law school and was an absolute force of nature.
Samuel Levine:Even though the job market was not very good for public interest students, Harvard offered extraordinary support for students looking to pursue public interest. I mean, I I had Alexa and Judy Murciano and others on speed dial. They knew everything I was applying for. I mean, we we were friend. We still are friends to this day.
Samuel Levine:That was the kind of relationship I had with my career advisers. So I was very lucky. And when it was time for me to find a job, even though I was a couple years out of law school, I did not hesitate to reach out to Alexa. So I reached out to Alexa. Alexa connected me to someone else in her office, Katherine Patnaik, who does federal hiring.
Samuel Levine:She did not know anyone at the FTC in Chicago, but she knew another HLS grad at FTC headquarters, someone I work with closely now, Tara Kroslav, who's deputy director. Tara connected me to a lawyer in the Chicago office of the FTC. So, you know, Harvard really went and every law school, I hope, is doing this above and beyond. They didn't have a connection, so they found in fact, I think there was one more degree of separation there. They just kept persisting until they found a connection from me.
Samuel Levine:And then for me, it was easy. I I got coffee with with Joni Wade, who's a staff attorney at the time. Now she's assistant director in our Chicago office, talked through why I was interested in the FTC and my experience, and she put an award for me to the director at the time. Todd Passo just retired. So, you know, I you know, who knows what would have happened if I hadn't done that?
Samuel Levine:I had liked to think they would have found my resume in in the stack. But I was able through my law school alumni work or connections to to find a human face at that office that, I'm sure, helped me land that job.
Khurram Naik:And then from there, you had some advocacy that led you to work for then commissioner Rohit Chopra as well.
Samuel Levine:It was a little bit it was a it was not advocacy at the FTC, actually. What happened was when I was at the Illinois AG, and I told you that we were struggling to get the federal government to pay attention to for profit schools with one exception, and that was the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The agency that Elizabeth Warren, who was a law professor when I was there, had had her brainchild. CFPB had a very energetic young student loan ombudsman named Rohit Chopra who really was working, I think, on two fronts. He wanted to put student debt on the national agenda, and I think he, working with many others, succeeded.
Samuel Levine:And he wanted to make sure more profit schools that were breaking the law were being held accountable. And for that, he worked closely with coalition of state AGs. I got to know Rohit through through that work. I would fly to DC not infrequently to meet with him and other CFPB and state officials about our overall strategy on on these different cases. So when Rohit was so, you know, we we went our separate he he ended up going to the Department of Ed.
Samuel Levine:I ended up going to the FTC. We stayed in touch. To my surprise well, by the time it happened, I I wasn't surprised, but I I he was nominated to be an FTC commissioner in, I believe, 2017. And I actually did something that took it was hard for me to do. It did not come naturally to me, which was reach out to him and see if he'd be willing to hire me as an adviser.
Khurram Naik:What was the impact of that? Like, what what did that teach you about reaching out to him?
Samuel Levine:I'm someone who is always afraid of sounding or being presumptuous. To this day, it's it's something I I struggle with. I think a lot of people probably do, but it's certainly something for me. And the notion that, you know, I I I knew wrote it. I thought he respected me, but we didn't you know, he wasn't reviewing my briefs in Illinois.
Samuel Levine:Like, he wasn't firsthand reviewing my work product. We weren't he's not even a lawyer. Like, we were not co counsel on cases together. You know? But I I knew him pretty well, but I didn't know if I knew him well enough.
Samuel Levine:I mean, he at the time was a pretty prominent figure, but now he's prominent generally. Then he was prominent in the student debt world. You know, I I thought, well, there he he could have the pick of any consumer lawyer in in the country for this job. He's every everyone saw him as a rising star. So I felt for me, who is you know, I was in Chicago.
Samuel Levine:I wasn't even in DC. I had been at the FTC for a short time. To me to ask to be this, you know, pretty important role as an adviser to a commissioner felt like I remember thinking to myself, well, I I have nothing to lose. There wasn't that easy. I had to really convince myself and talk to people, and I really had to kinda steal myself to to reach out.
Samuel Levine:And I I did. And I I think something out that was like a trial period. I would go for the three to six month detail. We would see if it worked out and and and see what happens. That required me to pack my bags and move from Chicago to DC, but I had the good sense to you know, I wasn't married.
Samuel Levine:I I wasn't tied down. I I think I had the good sense to recognize this was an opportunity I should take, and I did it. I moved to DC. Never thought I would never thought I would move.
Khurram Naik:What then I mean, how do you leap from attorney adviser to director of the Bureau of Consumer of Consumer Protection?
Samuel Levine:Well, the first thing was that took a chance on me and brought me on as, you know, still a relatively junior of attorney to be his actually his only consumer protection. I I was his consumer protection adviser. I'm legally he had he had a technologist as well and chief of staff who who were we worked very closely together. But basically, every consumer protection case, I I was working with him. That was a big responsibility.
Samuel Levine:So he really took a chance on me, and he also took a chance on another young legal fellow. She became a legal fellow who had just graduated law school, had gotten some attention for a law review article she wrote in 2017. Robert hired her for the summer. Her name was Lina Khan. You know, Lina at the time had I think people had heard of her article.
Samuel Levine:I don't think she was she certainly wasn't the figure she is now, but she came in and worked as a as a legal fellow with. They were working on a law review article together on unfair method of competition rulemaking, which is a hot topic these days. And I got to know Lina. And one of the things when I the day I met her that I learned was that she had also done a foreclosure clinic in law school. So she had sort of that same experience as I did witnessing how the financial crisis was was affecting real people.
Samuel Levine:So long story short, Lina just stayed for a few months, then she went to Columbia to be a a law professor. Fast forward a couple years, president Biden is president Biden by this time. He's a been elected president. He nominates Lina to be an FTC commissioner. She is confirmed.
Samuel Levine:The day she's confirmed or maybe the day after, he names her chair of the FTC, which is the head of we're a five person agency. She's the head of it. And she appointed me a couple days later as acting director of the Bureau of Consumer Protection.
Khurram Naik:Then what happened? How do you what was that what was the process like from going
Samuel Levine:from acting director to director? Well, the process of going from acting I mean, it was an enormous leap from the adviser position to the acting director. I mean, the the leap from adviser to acting director was much bigger than the leap from acting director to director. The lead from acting director was to director. I mean, it was a mindset shift.
Samuel Levine:It was like, okay. I'm I'm the leader of the bureau now. But it was mostly paperwork. Right? You know, I I became a political appointee.
Samuel Levine:You know, there are a lot of additional financial disclosures. I I had to complete the commission votes on my appointment, and I, you know, sort of sat down for interviews with I mean, it wasn't it wasn't like a job interview, but I sat down one on one with each commissioner to talk through my vision for the bureau and my vision for how I would work with them. And and then they voted, and then I was pleased to get a unanimous vote to be named the director of the bureau, which which I remain.
Khurram Naik:So then in that lead to talk about that first date from attorney adviser to this acting director, what had a change for you? You're you're in that role for, like, let's say, three months or whatever. Like, what was the biggest surprise in that transformation?
Samuel Levine:I mean, the the scale of the responsibility was a little overwhelming, honestly, for many. It would have been you know, as an adviser, I had a I had a big I had an unusually big job for an most commissioners have two consumer protection legal advisers. Rohit had one. He also, as I said, had a outstanding technologist, Yuri Meyer and others, but he only had one attorney advising him on consumer protection. So I I had a large volume of cases.
Samuel Levine:I had to learn about a lot of FTC law. I had to learn how the remember, I had been in Chicago, so I didn't know a lot of this. I had to learn about the organization, learn learn the manager. So I came in with a lot of advantages. Like, I I knew the managers of all the offices.
Samuel Levine:I I knew the substance. I knew the kinds of cases, the rhythm. I knew how cases got out of the commission. I hadn't I came in with some real strengths, but I had not really been a manager before. And suddenly I was managing a group with, you know, 450 people.
Samuel Levine:Rohit had sketched as a minority commissioner during the Trump administration a very ambitious agenda for consumer protection, you know, sort of you think of him as like a shadow government. Like, what the the vision that he laid out when he was in the minority, I felt obviously, I'd my job now would be to carry out Lina's vision, but I felt expectations were high about what we'd be able to deliver. So that that was very the size of the organization, the the the ambition that I know Lina felt, that Rohit felt, and the trust that both of them had placed in me. Getting to know the people. You know, many of the people sort of in in the front office that I became the head of, I I didn't know very well, or I or I only knew from a distance.
Samuel Levine:And getting to know them, figuring out how I wanted to staff the office, figuring out how I wanted to these were all totally new experiences for me, and I had to learn on the job.
Khurram Naik:Was there something remarkable about being in this sort of yeah. Rojo Chopra, I think he's, like, 42 young. Yeah. You're young as well. Yeah.
Khurram Naik:Late thirties. Right?
Samuel Levine:Yeah. 38.
Khurram Naik:Lena Khan, of course, is is also young as well. Like, this historically novel for so many young people to have such leadership roles in in these key parts of of consumer protection?
Samuel Levine:In recent history, yeah, I I think it is, And I don't think it's a coincidence. I think Rohit, Lena, and I, and many of and Eiry Meyer, many many of the people I worked with, we were shaped by what we saw in 02/2008, 02/2009. We were inspired by Elizabeth Warren. We were excited by the notion with the CFPB that the government could play a bigger role in in protecting the public. Obviously, Lina came in with her own antitrust perspective, which was not my world, but, you know, I quickly became interested in.
Samuel Levine:So, you know, we had we grew up in this sort of Reaganite orthodoxy that, you know, government that governs best, governs least, governments should stay out of the way, markets should be trusted themselves. In particular, governments should deregulate the financial market with both president Clinton and president Bush supported and contributed to. And then suddenly we graduate college, and we're hit, and all of everything we learned, culture, I mean, turned out to be wrong. The deregulation was a disaster. Everyone said we're in a free market, but here these banks are getting these massive bailouts.
Samuel Levine:Everyone says the law is supposed to apply equally, but none of these bank executives faced any consequences. So I think all of us came up and were shaped profoundly by the financial crisis, and it really motivated us, each one of us, in our own way to believe that we need some big changes in in how the government sees its role in protecting the public. So I think that an interesting aspect of career explorers, you know, it's been very bottom up. It's not
Khurram Naik:been very highly strategic. Like, it's not been someone might look at your resume and say, okay. Well, you know, you don't accidentally end up as director of bureau of consumer protection, obviously. So, like, you must have been working backwards in some way to make that happen, and you had the right pedigree to make it happen. So everything was in place to make this happen.
Samuel Levine:So I think we've got a clear counter narrative for that. But tell me, you know, in choosing these experiences, you know, I I don't think
Khurram Naik:you could use the word strategic in as as like, hey. This is a strategic I'm gonna join HLAB because that's gonna be better for my career than law review. Or in HLAB, we'll take on this kind of work because this is most likely to to yield me, you know, getting in front of court. You know, there's some mild strategy involved with, hey. You know, if I wanna get into role in federal government, clerkship will buttress that.
Khurram Naik:And so so there's some strategic aspect to to your career, but largely, it's been bottom up. Can you say a word for the merits of a strategic approach to career? Do you have a strategic approach career now, or or is there some way that you can, encourage students to have a a strategic approach to career? And then I definitely wanna hear about ways which people can be more bottom up, but I thought I'd start with that.
Samuel Levine:I think one thing I did, and I'm not sure if it strategic at the time, but in retrospect, I'm gonna call it a a good strategy, I guess. I did not chase prestige, which is a trap I think a lot of people, especially people who are at elite law schools, fall into. You know? But when when you do well, not I did well in high school. I did well in college.
Samuel Levine:I did you know, you're you're used to getting a certain level of validation from elite institutions in the form of grades or recognition or or the like. And then many people who are in law school then leads them to pursue law firms because it sort of resembles the hierarchy that they experience when they're applying for law. So there's a ranking of law firms, and they'll interview you, and You get a very nice office and a nice pay, and it's very fancy when you say you work somewhere. I I did not chase prestige. I chased experiences that were fulfilling to me and where I felt I could do good.
Samuel Levine:And I don't just mean do good like do good for the world. I'm not saying it was totally altruistic. It was also like do good in, like, work that I like and care about, work that I can do work for hours and hours and still enjoy. So, you know, I'm not sure I would have made law review if I had applied, but I I I was not interested in law review. I hated Bluebooking.
Samuel Levine:I found law review. I'm now proud to have published a law review article, but I'm actually not that interested in in writing law review. I'm working on another one now, but I'm not that interested in working on law review articles. I wanted to practice, so I pursued the Legal Aid Bureau. The summer internships I did were one was at a legal aid group.
Samuel Levine:The other was a public interest organization. Illinois state government is is not it's many great things. It's not particularly fancy. I worked in a really now condemned office. The experiences, I think, mattered to be more when I applied for clerkships.
Samuel Levine:I I applied. I said I applied only in Chicago. I applied for district court and seventh circuit. If I had gotten a seventh circuit clerkship, I probably would have taken it, but I actually wanted district court. So I thought that would get me better experience.
Samuel Levine:Again, I was not gonna turn down a seventh circuit clerkship if someone's gonna offer it, but I wanted the experience of being in a district court. And I think that was a good idea because I I do find, and I have many, many examples, that people who chase, there's nothing wrong with prestige. But and, you know, I I I went to a fancy law school and know and and the the fact that it was prestigious certainly played a role in in my going there. So there's nothing wrong with prestige. But when you graduate law school, you really think you have to think about this is the rest of your life.
Samuel Levine:This isn't like a stepping stone. I mean, a stepping stone, the next thing, but you're also like this you're you're setting yourself on a path. And chasing prestige does not a fulfilling career make in the long term. I think finding if you can go in law school and find something you like to do and chase use law school to figure out what you like to do, chase that. And then I think the recognition and the job opportunities hopefully will follow because you'll be good at it.
Khurram Naik:Yeah. I think that's definitely helpful advice. And I think that maybe to build on that advice or or or how you can additionally frame it. I I think some of the challenge that you see with a lot of people in big law is I think they like, anyways, I mean, I was in big law for for for very similar reasons of the the status of prestige, but then also the narrative you can tell yourself is, oh, well, I can leverage this for whatever else I wanna do. You know?
Khurram Naik:So I can yeah. I'll I'll have money that I've thought to weigh, then also I'll have this prestige and, you know, probably good experience. So then then that will be the ultimate jumping off point. So how how would you address that?
Samuel Levine:That that is true for many people. I think I know for many more people, I'm not sure that is true. I mean, there are a number of issues with it. First, a lot of people go to law firms and just burn out really quickly, and they just leave the law. And I have a number of friends who just left the law altogether.
Samuel Levine:Others go to firms, and and maybe they can tolerate it, but they're not getting great experience. So when they apply for, say, they wanna be a US attorney or assistant US attorney or something like that, Like, a lot of people say they go to a law firm and then they go into government. But, yeah, you're US you're the FTC. We get a lot of applications from third year, fourth year law students. You're the US attorney's office.
Samuel Levine:You're getting a whole lot. And if you're not getting that experienced law firm, it's not a sure thing. You're gonna you're gonna get a job at a US attorney's office. What you often see instead is people going from one law firm to another law firm with maybe less prestige but also better hours. And that's a totally reasonable career path.
Samuel Levine:But if the goal was to kind of parlay the prestige of a law firm into something you really wanna do, whether that's government or nonprofit, that is not a sure thing. And you're really somewhat I mean, you would know this better than I do, but from what my friends tell me, you're somewhat at the mercy of what partners you end up working with, what work you end up getting, what cases you end up being on. So it's a risky prop people think of it as the lowest risk option. I don't think it's the lowest risk option.
Khurram Naik:What would you say is the lowest risk risk option?
Samuel Levine:Yeah. As I said that, know. Well, what is the lowest risk option? I mean, the the lowest for job system is a privileged one that not everyone can do, which is to find something you like to do. Look.
Samuel Levine:And and and I'm not delusional about this. Not not everyone has that opportunity, but what I would encourage people to do is be open to jobs that are not the most prestigious, you know, especially and, I mean, I saw this at Harvard Law School. It was like you either go to a big law firm or very fancy public interest group like ACLU. If you went into government, it was usually the DOJ, being an assistant US attorney. There were certain career paths that were sort of associated that that were sufficiently prestigious for for Harvard graduates.
Samuel Levine:People should look beyond that. People should look at local government, state government, legal aid, which many people do. So I so I I think the safest path is if you can find something you like and you're good at, pursue that, and then hopefully, you'll succeed in a way that you could stand out in your career and and go on to to bigger and bigger things.
Khurram Naik:Okay. Then let let's be more specific. Let's say you're a fifth year associate at Bigford trying to figure out what comes next, And this fifth year comes to to Sam Levy and says, Sam, I'm trying to figure out what comes next here. I'm trying to incorporate principles you're talking about. How would I apply those?
Khurram Naik:I mean, I'm five years in. I'm at a big firm. I had the experiences that I have. I'm somewhat specialized. How how do I figure out what comes next for me if if I wanna pursue your thesis of of being more intentional with experiences and and find things that you love?
Samuel Levine:Well, it's a question of whether that person knows what they wanna do. If it's something that the person knows they wanna do, there are opportune so, obviously, the first thing is if you're able to do that through your job at the law firm, that's great. Again, I've I've I've not worked at a big law firm, so I don't want to speak to what the dynamics are, but certainly if you're able to find a partner who can give you opportunities to do the things you're interested in, getting some real experience in that is going to be really important. If you can't do that I mean, one thing I did when starting at when I was at the AG, and I I guess this this was strategic on my part. I joined the local bar association and became co chair.
Samuel Levine:At some point, I became co chair of the consumer law committee at the Chicago Bar Association. And what that allowed me to do and and one reason this was strategic is it allowed me to keep my toe in the consumer protection water even while I was clerking. I I made sure that this was kosher to do this, of course. So I became chair co chair of cochair of the committee. And, you know, it was the the nice thing about it, if we're talking being strategic is people I wanted to meet, I would invite them to speak to the bar association.
Samuel Levine:You know, I wanted to meet people in CFPB. I would have a little thing on what's going on at the CFPB. I remember wanting to learn about privacy, and I invited Jay Edelson to speak. You know, there were there were other opportunities. I I was also involved in my alumni organizations.
Samuel Levine:There are other opportunities outside your law firm to try to get involved where oftentimes these groups like Logo Bar Association, they often need people to volunteer to do kind of the grunt work of organizing speakers, tracking CLEs. Like, if you're willing to do that, it's a real way to gain experience, exposure, and connections even if you're not getting those in your day job.
Khurram Naik:Is there anything intentional you're doing with your network or similarly with developing your
Samuel Levine:expertise, either of those at this stage? At this stage? It's something I probably should do more. I mean, the the the reality is I mean, I I'm fortunate. I I do a lot of speaking events and conferences.
Samuel Levine:I have lots of meetings, so I I get to meet a lot of people in the course of my work. But the reality is the hours in this job are are very, very demanding, and it's it's hard for me. Like, at at the end of the day, I might have an event after work, and by the time I'm done with many, many hours of work starting at six, 06:30AM, and then you have an event after work, and you gotta eat dinner, you wanna see your partner, you wanna relax. Like, you don't wanna then go to some other networking event or so it's it's it's a challenge for me. It's something I probably should be more intentional about, but I'm very sympathetic to people who say, look.
Samuel Levine:Like, it's all sounds well and good, but I'm working crazy hours. I don't have time. And not you know, I I I feel a lot a lot of empathy there.
Khurram Naik:So okay. So going back to you you you you were talking about when you you gave a first whole argument, and there's a group behind you that, you know, literally cheering you on. Yeah. And so as you said, you know, you're you know, pick this path for for that public validation, but, of course, we're human beings. And, of course, it's helpful and and satisfying, gratifying to get that.
Khurram Naik:I think something interesting about your role is how public facing it is and how much and and certainly, there was I I haven't heard anything about media strategy that you used early on, but maybe I'll pause there. Like, was there any kind of going out to HLAB, you mentioned you got coverage. Was there a media strategy component to that work that was intentional?
Samuel Levine:There was a media strategy, which I it's interesting you asked that. I was not I I don't do that here even though we have a public affairs team, and I didn't do it in law school. I don't I don't think we really had a strategy. We had reporters come to us, but I did, through that experience, get to it was my first real exposure to the media. I started doing interviews for the first time.
Samuel Levine:I remember I had a reporter from The Nation shadow me on a foreclosure when I was doing going door to door and and ended up doing a a cover story on our foreclosure work. You know, and I I I did a fair number of interviews with reporters at at both local and national publications. One thing I did realize is, you know, I I was pretty good at that. I I, you know, I was I did forensics in high school. I did debate in high school.
Samuel Levine:I did forensics and debate in college. Like, I've I've always enjoyed public speaking. I always enjoyed oral arguments in court. And I will say one, you know, one thing I I have tried to do in this job is to try to use whatever skills I have there to be you know, I especially when I was starting, I did not have a lot of management. And, you know, there were a lot of things I lacked, But one thing I really tried to do is I I could be a good voice for the bureau, a good advocate for the bureau.
Samuel Levine:So that's something I've tried to use both as both because I think media is an important part of achieving social change. I think some lawyers dismissed that, but they shouldn't. But also because I wanted the I I wanted the bureau to feel that the people who work in the Bureau of Consumer Protection to feel that I was a good voice for them and a good advocate for them. And that's something I've tried to do my three years my whole three years in this job.
Khurram Naik:Can you say about a little bit about another way of affecting this change could have been through the through private practice, consumer law. And so have you ever thought about, you know, what would my career have been like if I if I pursued if I went down that path?
Samuel Levine:I didn't really think I I well, there were some opportunities I was considering on private public interest firms. I I have not thought about it a lot. I can tell you that we have been able to recruit at the FTC a number of lawyers from firms like Cohen Milstein who have real great experience in affirmative public interest litigation, And they are top notch. They're creative. They're aggressive.
Samuel Levine:They're good they're good colleagues. I don't wanna say this about every person out there, but they bring a certain spirit of, I wanna say, aggressiveness, I think, and willing to not afraid of a fight that I really admire. So I I really see the work of public interest law firms as like, complementary to the work of the FTC. I think we're often fighting for the same things. And certainly when we're hiring, you know, people who have those backgrounds, it's very compelling in terms of how that sets them up to succeed at the FTC.
Khurram Naik:You consider them complimentary. Is there anything that makes someone more suitable for one path than the other?
Samuel Levine:In the sense that makes a lawyer more suitable for a private private firm versus the government? Yeah. I I I think it depends on what people want. I mean, obviously, one part of working in a firm is I mean, the at least what I was told in law school, I mean, the the hours are often not any better than a defense side firm, so but the money is not as good. So a, you have to really care about what you do.
Samuel Levine:You have to really care about the work. Like, if someone doesn't care about consumer protection, I'm not sure I would tell them to be a consumer protection plaintiff side lawyer. Like, just, you know, you just wanna make a lot of money. You don't care about the hours. Go to a law firm.
Samuel Levine:Go to a defense side. You know, there are some people who might be really good at generating business, might be good at sort of more entrepreneurial kind of legal theories. You know, that that might make the person a a good fit for a private law firm. But, again, we also really value creativity and go getterness, not a word, at the FTC. So, you know, lots of good options.
Khurram Naik:Is there anything I I don't know how close you've been an observer of the plants bar or, you know, anything in the consumer space, but do you have any observations on how that space has changed in the past ten years?
Samuel Levine:Well, you have farmers like Gupta Westler that just do extraordinary work. Really, it's wonderful to see, and I'd be curious how many of these consumer lawyers like me sort of came into this through the financial crisis. But it's wonderful to see really top notch consumer advocacy in DC and and all over the country. You know, if you look, for example, at some of the litigation around arbitration, successful case of the Supreme Court this term, I think it was I think it was Gupta Westlaw. There have been successful over the last few years.
Samuel Levine:Really creative, smart lawyers. You look at what the CFPB did today where they basically ban medical debt from credit reports. I know some of the lawyers who were involved in that process, and they come from the public interest bar, from from the plaintiff's side bar. I mean, these are folks who really understand litigation, litigation, really think creatively, and they add enormous value to government work.
Khurram Naik:And so then what do you see for for yourself? Like, what what's top of mind for you in in the coming year? Mean, of course, there's an election coming up. Very often, that's top of mind. That aside or or related to that or not obvious ways, like, what what is top of mind for you and the agency?
Samuel Levine:Well, truly feel that top of mind for me is finishing the job we started over the last few years. I'm very proud of what we've accomplished across the agency, but, certainly, I'm partial to our consumer protection work over the last few years. I think we've gotten a lot more done than people thought was possible in in the three years we've had so far. But there's a lot more on our to do list. There's a lot more that we started we need to finish.
Samuel Levine:So one thing I'm committed to do is, you know, regardless of what happened, you know, if if president's reelected and you know, I I don't wanna speculate, but one thing I'm committed to now is whoever sits in my seat a year from now, I want I want this good work to continue. I realize a different administration's gonna come with different priorities. But one thing I really try I'm trying to do now is to build and generate bipartisan support for the work that we're doing. We're winning a lot of that, actually. I think we're getting a lot of bipartisan support for the work we're doing.
Samuel Levine:And the the long term project of making the FTC the best possible champion for the American public and for American consumers is one that I wanna see through because we have a lot of work to do.
Khurram Naik:Sam, thanks for sharing your fascinating story. I think there's lots of principles I think that lawyers of all stripes can learn from, and I I really appreciate taking the time to sit down with us.
Samuel Levine:Bill, it was a pleasure. Thanks for having me. I have no idea why I said us. It's me. That's fine.
Samuel Levine:The team. Team.