09 Feb 2026
Baker Donelson Adds Regulatory Attorney R. Colgate Selden to Financial Services Litigation and Compliance Group
"Baker Donelson welcomes R. Colgate Selden as a shareholder in its Financial Services Litigation and Compliance Group in Washington, D.C., where he will work on consumer and mortgage lending and financial services regulatory matters."
Mr. Selden brings more than 20 years of regulatory legal experience spanning senior government roles, private practice, and executive leadership in the financial services industry. He is widely regarded as a leading authority on federal and state regulation of consumer and mortgage lending, financial technology, and related banking activities. At Baker Donelson he will work within the Firm’s Financial Services Litigation and Compliance Group.
Before joining Baker Donelson, Mr. Selden co-founded and co-led a boutique regulatory firm that served mortgage, fintech, investor, and consumer finance clients nationwide, where he held the role of co-founder and co-leader. Earlier in his career he served as managing director and head of regulation and compliance for a mortgage technology and fulfillment services provider, overseeing legal, regulatory, compliance, quality control, and risk matters.
Mr. Selden was a founding member of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and was instrumental in developing key Dodd-Frank Act Title XIV rules. While in the CFPB’s Office of Regulations, he played a central role in developing, drafting, and implementing major rulemakings, served as the CFPB team lead handling inquiries on legal interpretations of TILA mortgage rules, the FDCPA, and Regulation P, and was a senior advisor on the RESPA Section 8 policy team. He also served as an attorney-adviser at the U.S. Department of the Treasury on the CFPB implementation team.
Mr. Selden advises clients across all aspects of consumer and mortgage loan operations on matters including entity formation, new loan programs, technology development, mergers and acquisitions, securities, tax, intellectual property, licensing, compliance, vendor arrangements, transactions, enforcement, and risk management. His clients have included banks, non-bank lenders, credit unions, investors, fintech firms, financial services companies, settlement service providers, home builders, insurers, appraisal management companies, lead generators, outsourced service providers, and other participants and ancillary service providers.
He joins a growing Baker Donelson team in Washington, D.C., that includes attorneys with significant policy and regulatory backgrounds, such as Kara M. Ward and Elena G. Babinecz.
Mr. Selden holds a law degree from Vermont Law School and an LL.M. from Georgetown University. He is a member of the Mortgage Bankers Association (serving on the Legal Issues Committee), the Structured Finance Association (member of the Third Party Review Task Force), and is an elected member of the Governing Committee of the Conference on Consumer Finance Law.