Episode 65: Todd Higey on FCRA Compliance, and Building a Background Screening Law Practice

Send us Fan MailTodd Higey is a background screening attorney based in Birmingham, Alabama with 28 years of legal experience. After a decade and a half of litigation work and nearly a decade as in-house counsel for ESS and Global HR Research, he now runs his own solo law practice serving CRAs, wholesalers, and data brokers across the country. In this episode, Les sits down with Todd for a conversation that covers the full arc of a legal career built on background screening. From the day a class action lawsuit landed on his desk and he walked it right back out the door, to the data-driven compliance strategy he has spent years building and sharing at PBSA, Todd brings the kind of hard-won perspective you only get from someone who has actually done the work. Pro Conversation You don't want to miss!- Good compliance work often feels like proving a negative. You set up the infrastructure, the procedures, the forms and you never really know if it holds until the day it gets tested.- Tracking FCRA lawsuits filed in federal court year over year is one of the smartest things an in-house lawyer can do. Data tells you what the plaintiff's bar is focused on. Anecdotes do not.- Transparency with clients is not just good practice. It prevents the hard conversations later. If a client buys the more economical package, make sure they know exactly what that means before anything goes wrong.- Before you hire a lawyer for your new screening company, hire someone who has actually worked the queue. Operations experience is the foundation everything else is built on.- Get involved in PBSA government relations. The legislation being worked on right now affects every company in this space, and the people doing that work need support. Subscribe on Spotify or wherever you listen, and follow us on YouTube. Thanks to our sponsor, PreemploymentDirectory.com, publisher of Background Buzz and numerous other resources. And a special thanks to W. Barry Nixon.Connect with US:Les Rosen- https://www.linkedin.com/in/lesterrosen/Subscribe to our YouTube Channel- https://www.youtube.com/@BehindtheSCreens200