Hanover, Md. - Hudson Cook LLP, a nationwide provider of legal compliance services for the financial services industry, added Richard P. Hackett as a partner in the Portland, Maine office, effective March 1, 2014. Hackett’s practice will focus on all aspects of state and federal regulation of retail financial products origination and marketing, e-payments, regulation of financial service entities and lending, deposit and insurance transactions.

From 2011 to 2013, Hackett was the head of the Office of Installment and Liquidity Lending Markets, in the Division of Research, Markets and Regulations at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). His responsibilities included advising all divisions of the Bureau with respect to market information and policy issues in the installment and specialty lending areas, including vehicle finance, student lending and payday lending. Since leaving the Bureau in August 2013, he has continued his policy work as a speaker, teacher and policy consultant, both in Maine and nationally. Before joining to the Bureau, Hackett practiced law for 31 years as a partner and leader of the Banking and Financial Services Group at Pierce Atwood LLP in Boston and Portland.

Hackett has also served as an adjunct member of the faculty of the Morin Center for Banking Law at Boston University School of Law from 2005 to 2011 and is a frequent national lecturer on consumer financial services law. From 1978 to 1979, he served as law clerk to the Honorable Frank M. Coffin, then Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals to the First Circuit. He graduated summa cum laude from Cornell Law School and magna cum laude Dartmouth College.

Hackett is a regent of the American College of Consumer Financial Services Lawyers. He served as vice chair of the Consumer Financial Services Committee of the Business Law Section of the American Bar Association from 2008 to 2011. From 2003 to 2006 he served as that committee’s chair of its Subcommittee on Internet Delivery/Electronic Banking. He is active in the Maine State Bar Association Consumer and Financial Institutions Law Section (serving as chair from 1982 to 1986 and 1998 to 1999).

Tom Hudson, chairman, Hudson Cook, LLP, said “We welcome Rick to the firm. We think that he adds a dimension to our practice that will improve our ability to serve our clients. With his ability to provide insight into the regulatory process and thinking, Rick will be invaluable to our clients.”