Leaders in the Crossroads. Our EV team’s thorough understanding and practical experience at the intersection of financial services and insurance position us to serve the industry. We partner with our clients – from executive leadership to in-house counsel – to shape pioneering business models, lending, and insurance strategies while helping them stay compliant within the complex and fluid legal framework in the United States.

Clients appreciate our ability to listen and advise effectively on both the regulatory and business fronts. We know because our in-house clients often invite us to talk directly with their company’s business teams, demonstrating trust that we fully understand not only their legal matters but also their day-to-day and long-term business objectives and challenges. Whether clients are considering growth, entering new markets, or even revolutionizing their companies and the industries in which they operate, they rely on McGlinchey to help them brainstorm and troubleshoot on potential ventures.

Collaboration Is Embedded in Our DNA. While we pride ourselves on being able to answer and even anticipate client questions, we know that business units don’t operate in a vacuum. When questions arise outside of an immediate team’s purview, we don’t have to spend hours getting up to speed. We leverage the strengths of our McGlinchey colleagues in practices from tax to environmental to litigation to get answers quickly, accurately, and efficiently. Our collaborative culture equips us to build multidisciplinary teams, which is especially important in the fast-moving, ever-expanding EV market.

With a Little Help from Our Friends. Very few firms can match our engagement in leading professional associations. Beyond our law firm’s corridors, we cultivate and maintain close professional relationships with professionals in the automotive and related industries, trade group leaders, and lawyers at other firms. Our attorneys draw on this network to stay up to date on developments in the EV space and, when appropriate, facilitate introductions to build productive synergies.

Importantly, we also have strong relationships with regulators across the country. Our attorneys include former regulators from state insurance agencies, the CFPB, and state financial service agencies, who stay in touch with former colleagues. Our teams also include numerous former in-house lawyers from captive auto finance companies, FinTechs, insurance companies, and others. This diverse career experience augments our collective knowledge, which enhances our ability to serve clients.

Splitting the Business Model. Our team closely monitors emerging trends in this dynamic industry to stay ahead of new developments. For example, clients are increasingly exploring opportunities to separate components of the EV, whether the battery or charging station. We have advised on the related financing, title, licensing,  insurance, and recovery issues caused by this separation. We saw the manifestation of this bifurcated model coming and have advised clients on options for this new approach, given the varying lifecycle and repayment considerations at play.

Electrification: Venturing Beyond the Vehicle. Many of our clients are interested in financing charging stations and related products that support the purchase of an electric vehicle – the “electrification” of a consumer’s lifestyle. They come to us for counsel on launching lending programs for home charging stations, solar panels, and others. For clients considering this business expansion, we bring practical knowledge related to memorializing the loan, perfecting and recovering the collateral, titling, and insuring these products differently and separately from EVs.

Illustrative of our collaborative service, we leverage our experience with solar panel financing clients to help new entrants to the market implement business solutions that consider the unique characteristics of these related products.

Ahead of the Curve. Our deep bench and tenure in the industry equip our attorneys to anticipate all types of insurance and regulatory concerns – from nuanced changes to transformational shake-ups – and evaluate risks before they become problematic. We guide clients on continued compliance with evolving statutes and regulations and maintain productive relationships with key authorities to represent clients’ interests before administrative departments and agencies.

• Providing consumer finance regulatory, licensing, and operational advice to an international automotive company as it expands its electronic vehicle and battery offerings into the United States. In particular, we are developing the battery leasing program documentation and other consumer-facing documentation and are working with the financing, servicing, and product platform partners on all aspects of federal and state law compliance.
• Advising leadership of a major multinational manufacturer’s captive lender on the various business models in the EV market, helping them see the big picture in terms of the landscape of opportunities in consideration of a potential joint venture.
• Counseling a global auto manufacturer on developing a first-to-market insurance and titling program for small battery electric vehicles in the U.S.
• Working with the major providers of financial services to consumer vehicle purchasers and lessees in the areas of financing and leasing documentation, e-commerce, underwriting, licensing, state and federal regulatory examinations and investigations, acquisitions and divestitures, warehouse and other commercial financing, insurance, and structured finance.
• Advising an AI lending platform on comprehensive regulatory compliance counsel regarding current operations, including the development of an auto finance product and related compliance items regarding the launch of the product.
• Counseling a national bank on its auto finance servicing and recovery program for the bank’s new preferred lender relationship with a luxury electric vehicle manufacturer.
• Serving as lead firm to a super-regional state-chartered bank and its national motor vehicle sales finance company affiliate.
• Helping create consumer-facing documentation and processes for online lenders entering the vehicle finance and re-financing space.
• Providing nationwide licensing advice for both traditional and online financing sources.
• Advising several financial institutions to launch national lending programs.