Mark E. Budnitz

Mark E. Budnitz is the Bobby Lee Cook Professor of Law Emeritus at Georgia State University College of Law where he taught Consumer Protection, Payment Systems, Sales, Bankruptcy, and The Law of Electronic Commerce. Prior to teaching at Georgia State University, he headed the Bankruptcy Reorganization branch at the Securities and Exchange Commission’s southeastern regional office. Budnitz also taught at Boston University and Emory law schools. He began his legal career as an attorney in neighborhood legal services offices in Cambridge and Boston. He was a staff attorney at the National Consumer Law Center and later became NCLC’s executive director.

Budnitz specializes in consumer protection law, with a particular interest in electronic payment systems. He has published over 40 articles on payment systems and other topics in legal journals. In addition, he is the co-author of the first edition of NCLC’s Fair Credit Reporting manual and the first five editions of NCLC’s Consumer Banking and Payments Law manual. For 20 years he published biannual updates to The Law of Lender Liability.

Budnitz is a member of the American Law Institute. In 2025 he became a Senior Fellow at the Consumer Policy Center. For many years he has served on the Advisory Council of the Atlanta Legal Aid Society. He was a member of the Federal Reserve Board’s Consumer Advisory Council. In 2005 he received Georgia State College of Law’s Patricia T. Morgan Award for Outstanding Faculty Scholarship. He received the 1998 Writing Competition Award from the American College of Consumer Financial Services Lawyers.

Budnitz was appointed to the NCLC Board in 2002.