Consumer Protection and Antitrust Priorities: Colorado Attorney General’s Office

 

   

   

   

   

 

Alissa Gardenswartz, Esq., Shareholder, Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, former Deputy Attorney General for Consumer Protection, brings a wide scope of expertise and more than a decade of public sector experience to her consumer protection and antitrust practice. Alissa helps clients navigate (or avoid) inquiries from both state attorneys general and federal authorities through her extensive substantive knowledge of the law and her relationships with government officials across the country. Alissa focuses on a variety of consumer protection issues, including data security, consumer credit, and nonprofit oversight and regulation. Prior to joining Brownstein, Alissa served as a deputy attorney general for consumer protection in the Colorado Attorney General’s office. She joined the office in 2007 as an assistant attorney general and then became a first assistant attorney general overseeing antitrust cases, financial fraud and charity fraud cases and litigation related to the master settlement agreement between tobacco manufacturers and the states. In 2015, she was appointed deputy attorney general for consumer protection. In that role, Alissa oversaw all of the attorney general’s consumer protection and antitrust enforcement activities as well as the office’s consumer education and outreach. Additionally, she frequently testified before the Colorado General Assembly on consumer protection legislation and was one of the principal drafters of Colorado’s new data protection and breach notification laws. Alissa has also worked in private practice in both Denver and Washington, D.C. She began her career with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission Bureau of Competition where she earned awards for outstanding contributions to the FTC’s Merger Enforcement and Merger Litigation programs. She is a past president of the National Association of State Charity Officials and has also served as faculty for the National Attorneys General Training & Research Institute and the National Institute for Trial Advocacy.

 

Steven Kaufmann, Esq., Deputy Attorney General for Consumer Protection, Office of the Attorney General, Colorado Department of Law, has extensive public and private sector leadership experience. Mr. Kaufmann leads a team dedicated to protecting Colorado consumers and businesses by upholding Colorado and federal laws designed to maintain a fair and competitive business environment while protecting consumers from being targets of fraud. The Consumer Protection Section led by Mr. Kaufmann is devoted to meeting Attorney General Phil Weiser’s goals of keeping Coloradans safe by enforcing antitrust laws, combating unfair or deceptive trade practices, stopping unscrupulous lenders and debt collectors, assuring fair and reasonable utility rates, and fighting fraud against older Coloradans. In private practice, Mr. Kaufmann represented clients in high-stakes litigation and enforcement matters, including class actions, and steered clients through critical compliance strategies. He handled disputes and investigations in the financial services, telecom, energy, real estate, logistics and pharmaceuticals sectors. Mr. Kaufmann was the chair of Morrison & Foerster's global Litigation Department, a former managing partner of the firm’s Denver office, and a former chair of the firm's Consumer Litigation and Class Action Practice Group. From 2010 to 2014, Mr. Kaufmann served, upon appointment by President Obama, as the chief of staff at the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), an independent U.S. government development agency created to reduce poverty through long-term investments in impoverished countries. With an annual operating budget of $1 billion, MCC makes significant investments in African, Asian and Latin American nations designed to eliminate obstacles to economic growth, including transportation and energy solutions.

 

Christopher H. Wood, Esq., Lewis Brisbois Bisgaard & Smith LLP, Denver, CO