Margot Saunders

Senior Attorney

Margot Saunders is currently a senior attorney with the National Consumer Law Center (NCLC) after serving as managing attorney of NCLC’s Washington, D.C. office from 1991 to 2005. Margot has testified before Congress more than two dozen times regarding a wide range of consumer law issues, including predatory mortgage lending, high cost small loans, payments law, electronic commerce, protecting benefits in bank accounts, privacy issues, and robocalls. She was the lead advocate on the passage of the Home Ownership and Equity Protection Act, the development of the Treasury Rule protecting exempt benefits, and many other initiatives. Margot has served as an expert witness in over 50 consumer credit cases in more than 20 states, providing opinions on predatory lending, electronic benefits, servicing, and credit math issues in individual and class cases. She is a co-author of NCLC’s Consumer Banking and Payments Lawmany articles, and a contributor to numerous other manuals. Prior to joining NCLC, she was the consumer law specialist for North Carolina Legal Services. In 1991, Margot was the second recipient of the Vern Countryman Award. She is a graduate of Brandeis University and the University of North Carolina School of Law.

Featured Work

American Banker "What will it take to get banks into remittances?"

Originally airing on December 1, 2021 on the American Banker podcast, Polo Rocha discusses with Margot Saunders changes that consumer advocates worry could make remittances less transparent–leaving customers shortchanged.
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Broadband Breakfast: NCLC Attorney Debates the Best Methods of Stopping Illegal Calls with Industry Representatives

On Mar. 22, 2023, Margot Saunders joined a Broadband Breakfast Live Online event to discuss how the current industry and regulatory fight against illegal robocall traffic is failing to make a meaningful dent in the problem. “Robocalls have completely undermined the value of the U.S. telephone system. The system is losing value and that’s hurting…
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Op-Ed in CNN: Rules against robocalls shouldn’t be loosened

In an op-ed appearing in the CNN on November 9, 2018, Margot Saunders discusses businesses use of robocalls for debt collection and telemarketing and their efforts to capitalize on a recent DC Circuit Court decision that tasked the FCC with revisiting some of the rules that govern robocalls under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA). “The division…
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