Brian Shearer

Brian Shearer is the Director of Competition and Regulatory Policy at the Vanderbilt Policy Accelerator. Brian has worked in and out of government to advance corporate accountability and fair markets for his entire legal career. He worked at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) from 2021-2024 as a senior advisor to Director Rohit Chopra and as the agency's Assistant Director for Policy Planning and Strategy, where he conceived of and managed the agency's regulatory agenda, including junk fee prohibitions, data portability and privacy regulations, prohibitions on debanking, regulations on medical debt, and the agency's reinvigoration of the "abusive" standard of fair dealing. Before that, Brian was the founding Legal Director of Justice Catalyst Law, a nonprofit impact litigation law firm that files innovative class actions involving antitrust, consumer protection, privacy, employment, and civil rights law to advance economic justice. Brian also served as Senior Advisor to CFPB Director Richard Cordray in 2017, where, among other things, he managed the agency's regulations on payday lending and arbitration. Brian received his JD from American University Washington College of Law and is barred in Virginia and Washington, DC.