Is A "Private CFPB” Emerging? Or Is A New Consumer Protection Ecosystem Taking Shape?

“Nature abhors a vacuum.” — Aristotle

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s dramatic retreat from enforcement during 2025 and 2026 has created one of the most significant shifts in consumer financial services regulation since the Bureau opened its doors in 2011.

Much has been written about what the CFPB is no longer doing. Enforcement investigations have slowed dramatically. Numerous pending lawsuits have been dismissed or settled on terms markedly different from those sought by the prior Administration. Supervision has been scaled back, the direction of rulemaking has changed significantly, and the Bureau’s priorities have shifted away from the aggressive enforcement agenda that characterized much of its existence.

Far less attention has been paid to what is replacing that federal enforcement presence.

At first glance, one might conclude that a “private CFPB” is emerging. But that description is probably too narrow. The more accurate characterization is that a decentralized consumer protection ecosystem is taking shape. Former CFPB officials are dispersing into public-interest law firms, nonprofit advocacy organizations, state attorneys general offices, state financial regulators, academia, and even cabinet-level state government positions. Working independently, and often in collaboration, they appear poised to pursue many of the same consumer protection objectives that previously were advanced primarily through the CFPB.

Whether this evolving network ultimately proves as influential as the CFPB remains to be seen. Nevertheless, one conclusion already seems warranted: the Bureau’s reduced enforcement presence should not be mistaken for a comparable reduction in enforcement risk.

Rohit Chopra Heads West

After being removed as CFPB Director in February 2025, Chopra remained active in consumer protection policy through public speaking, academic appearances, and commentary on the future of financial regulation. Earlier this year, California Governor Gavin Newsom appointed Chopra to serve as the inaugural Secretary of the newly created Business and Consumer Services Agency (BCSA), a cabinet-level agency that officially began operations on July 1, 2026.

The significance of Chopra’s appointment extends well beyond a change in title. The BCSA consolidates oversight of numerous state departments responsible for consumer protection, licensing, and business regulation, including the California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation (DFPI), the state’s increasingly influential financial services regulator. As Secretary, Chopra oversees an agency designed to coordinate regulatory and enforcement activities across a broad spectrum of California’s consumer-facing industries.

For the consumer financial services industry, the appointment is particularly noteworthy because California has steadily expanded its role in financial regulation in recent years, often positioning itself as a state counterpart to the CFPB. The DFPI possesses broad supervisory and enforcement authority over many financial service providers doing business in California, including entities that are not subject to traditional bank regulation. Chopra’s experience as both CFPB Director and an FTC Commissioner makes him uniquely qualified to lead this new regulatory “super agency.”

In many respects, Chopra’s appointment illustrates another facet of the broader trend discussed in this article. While many former CFPB officials have migrated into public-interest litigation, nonprofit advocacy, private practice, or academia, Chopra has assumed a position from which he can influence consumer protection policy at the state level. His move also underscores the increasingly important role that California is likely to play as federal consumer financial enforcement becomes more decentralized. An important factor is that consumer protection concepts that originate in California often spread to other states.

Private Civil Litigation Steps Up

Less attention has been paid to another important, and potentially long-lasting, development: the migration of many of the CFPB’s most experienced enforcement lawyers into public-interest organizations, nonprofit advocacy groups, impact litigation practices, and state enforcement partnerships.

The recent formation of Halperin Petersen & Mikkilineni LLP represents perhaps the clearest illustration of this trend, but it is only one component of a much larger movement. The founders of the firm are:

• Eric Halperin – former CFPB Assistant Director for Enforcement
• Cara Petersen – former CFPB Acting Assistant Director for Enforcement
• Tara Mikkilineni – former CFPB senior Enforcement attorney

They have publicly stated that their mission is to partner with advocacy organizations and state attorneys general to pursue consumer protection and civil-rights litigation in areas where federal enforcement has receded.

The current movement did not emerge overnight.

Several prominent former CFPB officials established influential advocacy organizations years earlier, often in response to prior changes in federal enforcement priorities. Although these organizations were not created in response to the CFPB’s current retrenchment, they provide an important historical foundation for today’s expanding network of consumer advocacy organizations.

Deepak Gupta’s Gupta Wessler LLP demonstrated that former CFPB lawyers could build nationally recognized public-interest litigation practices. Likewise, the Student Borrower Protection Center, founded by former CFPB officials Seth Frotman, Mike Pierce, and Bonnie Latreille, demonstrated how former Bureau leaders could combine litigation, policy advocacy, coalition building, and public education to influence consumer financial services policy outside government.

The more recent formation of Protect Borrowers’ Strategic Litigation Project, and ultimately Halperin Petersen & Mikkilineni LLP, builds upon those earlier efforts but is unique in one important respect. It appears to be the first public-interest law firm established by multiple senior leaders of the CFPB’s Enforcement Division with the express objective of pursuing strategic litigation in areas where federal enforcement has receded.

A Decentralized Consumer Protection Ecosystem

Taken together, these developments reveal something more significant than the creation of a single public-interest law firm.

The emerging ecosystem includes:

• public-interest law firms, such as Halperin Petersen & Mikkilineni LLP;
• nonprofit advocacy organizations, including Protect Borrowers and the Student Borrower Protection Center;
• established public-interest appellate boutiques such as Gupta Wessler LLP;
• state attorneys general;
• state financial regulators, particularly California’s Department of Financial Protection and Innovation;
• former CFPB officials serving in senior state government positions, most notably Rohit Chopra’s leadership of California’s Business and Consumer Services Agency;
• consumer advocacy organizations such as the National Consumer Law Center and Public Citizen; and
• coordinated litigation partnerships among many of these organizations.

Viewed collectively, these institutions increasingly resemble an ecosystem rather than a hierarchy. Unlike the CFPB, there is no single leader, no centralized enforcement authority, and no federal supervisory power. Instead, expertise developed within the Bureau is being redistributed across a broad network of organizations capable of influencing consumer financial services law through litigation, state enforcement, public advocacy, and policy development.

Observations

Whether this emerging ecosystem ultimately succeeds is far from certain.

Private litigants and nonprofit organizations cannot issue Civil Investigative Demands. They cannot conduct supervisory examinations. They cannot seek federal civil money penalties payable to the United States Treasury. Nor do they possess the CFPB’s nationwide regulatory authority.

On the other hand, they do possess something equally significant: decades of collective experience investigating, litigating, and resolving complex consumer financial services matters.

Many of the lawyers and policymakers now leading these organizations designed the legal theories, investigative techniques, supervisory approaches, and enforcement strategies that shaped the CFPB from its inception. They understand the statutes, the markets, the industry participants, and the practical realities of consumer financial services litigation as well as anyone in the country.

Accordingly, while the CFPB itself may play a smaller role than it did only a few years ago, its expertise has not disappeared. Instead, it has been redistributed throughout an increasingly sophisticated network of public-interest organizations, nonprofit litigation groups, state attorneys general, state financial regulators, and private law firms.

The CFPB may be retreating from the center of the consumer financial services landscape. But the lawyers, policymakers, and enforcement philosophies that helped define the Bureau’s first fourteen years remain very much in the field. For the consumer financial services industry, that may prove to be one of the CFPB’s most enduring legacies.