Washington, D.C.--Three former senior enforcement leaders from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) today launched Halperin Petersen & Mikkilineni LLP (HPM), a public interest law firm aimed at holding the powerful accountable for exploiting workers, consumers, and small businesses. The firm’s leaders–Eric Halperin, Cara Petersen, and Tara Mikkilineni–bring to the firm decades of enforcement, litigation, and civil rights experience both inside and outside government. 

 

HPM uses cutting-edge legal firepower to fight predatory corporate practices and abuses of power that burden workers, consumers, and small businesses. They will represent working people, advocacy organizations, state attorneys general, and other public enforcers to deliver immediate relief and drive systemic change across the economy. The three founding partners are joined at HPM by counsels Adrienne Warrell and Nicole Mauri, both of whom also served in CFPB’s enforcement division.

 

“Growing corporate power and rapidly evolving technologies are stacking the deck against working people, while federal law enforcement has been dramatically weakened,” said Eric Halperin, founding partner at HPM. ”We believe litigation is critical to pushing back against corporate abuse.”

 

“HPM’s work focuses on challenging predatory practices that exploit workers, consumers, and communities,” said Cara Petersen, founding partner at HPM. “We are proud to take up the fight to defend working people.”

 

“Consumer rights, civil rights, and workers’ rights are all under attack, and HPM will use every tool available to stop this onslaught in its tracks,” said Tara Mikkilineni, founding partner at HPM. “By working with key partners, we will be able to deliver results for the public.”

 

Between 2021 and 2025, Halperin, Petersen, and Mikkilineni led a team at the CFPB that secured orders for more than $9.5 billion in penalties and payments to consumers. They developed innovative legal theories to address predatory practices, coordinated enforcement actions with broader policy initiatives to achieve marketwide impact, worked closely with state and local law enforcement partners, and brought enforcement actions against the nation’s largest Wall Street banks and tech companies. For the past year, Halperin, Petersen, and Mikkilineni have also served as senior fellows at Protect Borrowers, where they helped steer the organization's engagement with state attorneys general. They will remain as senior fellows moving forward as they build HPM.

 

PRACTICE AREAS

 

HPM’s practice areas will focus on:

 

• Consumer Rights: Unlawful practices by banks, lenders, debt collectors, and fintechs that strip wealth from working families through predatory lending, illegal junk fees, and deceptive schemes. 

 

• Tenant Rights: Illegal junk fees, unlawful evictions, and discriminatory housing practices at the hands of predatory landlords and corporate investors driving the affordable housing crisis. 

 

• Workers’ Rights: Wage theft, illegal misclassification, invasive monitoring programs, and algorithmic wage-setting.

 

• Civil Rights: Discriminatory lending, the criminalization of poverty, and the unlawful use of fines and fees. 

 

ABOUT THE PARTNERS

 

Eric Halperin is a founding partner at Halperin Petersen & Mikkilineni. For nearly 30 years, he has fought on behalf of people who are being harmed by corporations and institutions that put profit over people. He has dedicated his career to advancing consumer financial protection and civil rights at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), the U.S. Department of Justice, and in the non-profit sector. He is also a Senior Fellow at Protect Borrowers, a nonprofit organization fighting to build a fair economy for working people. 

 

Eric previously served as the Enforcement Director of the 250-person Enforcement Division at the CFPB. Under his leadership, the Division secured $9.5 billion in relief for consumers and penalties against companies for violating federal consumer protection laws. Prior to that, he served in leadership roles at the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department, overseeing the Division’s fair housing, fair lending, and employment enforcement programs. Eric received his J.D. from Harvard Law School and his B.A. from Wesleyan University. He is a member of the California and District of Columbia Bars.

 

Cara Petersen is a founding partner at Halperin Petersen & Mikkilineni and a leading consumer financial protection attorney with nearly 25 years of experience across private practice, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Throughout her government service, she fought for people harmed by abuses by those with power over consumers’ financial lives. She is also a Senior Fellow at Protect Borrowers, a nonprofit organization fighting to build a fair economy for working people.

​

Cara was part of the founding team of the CFPB following the passage of the Dodd-Frank Act, and spent more than 14 years there in a series of increasingly senior leadership roles. As the Principal Deputy Enforcement Director, she oversaw hundreds of investigations and litigations targeting some of the most harmful practices in consumer finance — from predatory lending and illegal debt collection to unlawful credit reporting and loan servicing practices. Before the CFPB, Cara was an attorney in the FTC's Division of Financial Practices. Cara received her J.D. from the University of Iowa College of Law and her B.A. from The George Washington University. She is a member of the District of Columbia and Virginia Bars.

 

Tara Mikkilineni is a founding partner at Halperin Petersen & Mikkilineni and a dedicated consumer financial protection and civil rights attorney with more than 15 years of experience at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, in the non-profit sector, and in public defense. Throughout her career, she has fought to hold powerful institutions accountable — from the corporations that exploit consumers to the legal systems that criminalize poverty. She is also a Senior Fellow at Protect Borrowers, a nonprofit organization fighting to build a fair economy for working people.

​

Tara previously served as Special Counsel to the Enforcement Director of the CFPB, where she advised leadership on the CFPB’s docket of enforcement investigations and litigations, including cases against the nation’s largest financial institutions. Prior to the CFPB, Tara was a senior attorney at Civil Rights Corps. Tara clerked for the Hon. Emilio Garza on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals and began her career as a special litigation attorney with the Public Defender Service of DC (PDS), bringing lawsuits on behalf of PDS clients in federal court to vindicate their civil rights. Tara is also the co-founder of The Hub for Innovative Law Offices, which serves as an incubator and supportive community for attorneys who start their own public interest law practices.

​

Tara received her J.D. from NYU School of Law, her M.S. from the London School of Economics and Political Science, and her B.A. from The University of California at Berkeley. She is a member of the California and District of Columbia Bars.

 

For more information or to schedule an interview, visit hpmjustice.com or contact press@hpmjustice.com.