Margot Saunders

Senior Attorney

Margot Saunders is a senior attorney with the National Consumer Law Center (NCLC), where she previously served as managing attorney of NCLC’s Washington, D.C. office from 1991 to 2005. Margot has testified before Congress more than two dozen times regarding a wide range of consumer law issues, including predatory mortgage lending, high cost small loans, payments law, electronic commerce, protecting benefits in bank accounts, privacy issues, and robocalls. She leads NCLC’s work on international remittances. She was the lead advocate on the passage of the Home Ownership and Equity Protection Act, led the development of the Treasury Rule protecting exempt benefits from debt collectors, ensured that essential consumer protections were included in the federal E-Sign Act, and spearheaded many other initiatives. In 1991, Margot was the second recipient of NCLC’s Vern Countryman Award. 

Margot is a co-author of NCLC’s Consumer Banking and Payments Law and many articles, and she is a contributing author to several other NCLC manuals. She has served as an expert witness in over 50 consumer cases in more than 20 states and as a consultant to private attorneys and state and federal enforcement agencies on dozens of cases. Margot authored the 2022 report, Scam Robocalls: Telecom Providers Profit. Among her many other reports are: Misaligned Incentives: Why High-Rate Installment Lenders Want Borrowers Who Will Default and The Rent-to-Own Racket.

Prior to joining NCLC, she was the consumer law specialist for North Carolina Legal Services.

Education: 

J.D. University of North Carolina School of Law

B.A. Brandeis University