Welcome to Kathleen Keest

Credit Slips welcomes Kathleen Keest, an expert in consumer credit. Kathleen brings multiple perspectives to her opinions, having provided legal representation to low-income families as a legal aid attorney, exercised enforcement authority as an Assistant Attorney General in Iowa, and worked on policy issues for the National Consumer Law Center. Kathleen is currently Senior Policy Counsel at the Center for Responsible Lending, a Durham, North Carolina-based research group. The Center for Responsible Lending produces research and advocates for policy reform on nearly all the major consumer credit issues, including mortgage lending, payday lending, and credit cards. It is affiliated with the Center for Community Self-Help, a non-profit financial institution that has provided over $5 billion of financing to low-income households, small businesses, and non-profits.

Kathleen has received well-deserved recognition for her dedication to improving the consumer credit system. She has been honored with the NCLC's Vern Countryman Award, NACA's Advocate of the Year award, and ACCFSL's Senator William Proxmire Lifetime Achievement Award. My students know her from the 8th Circuit opinion, Besta v. Beneficial Loan Co., an important decision on unconscionability, in which the court relied on her expert testimony.