The Equipment Leasing and Finance Association (ELFA) has selected Moorari K. Shah, Counsel for Buckley LLP, to receive its 2019 David H. Fenig Distinguished Service in Advocacy Award. The award honors individuals who have made significant contributions to the association’s advocacy efforts to promote sound public policies for the equipment finance industry.

Shah will be formally recognized during a ceremony at ELFA’s Capitol Connections event on Wednesday, May 15, in Washington, D.C.

Shah is recognized for his extraordinary contributions to the association’s state advocacy program. He has assisted the industry in promoting its policy objectives in a number of ways, most notably through providing analysis and guidance to ELFA, its membership and specific issue workgroups. In addition, his willingness to assist ELFA state negotiations has been invaluable to the association’s success on a number of critical issues.

For example, Shah has advised on industry exemptions to onerous financial disclosure requirements in California and New Jersey. He leads ELFA’s California DBO Workgroup, which represents the industry with comments and guidance to the California Department of Business Oversight. In addition, he leads ELFA’s newly created California Attorney General Privacy Workgroup. 

Shah has been active on a number of committees and subcommittees, including the ELFA Legal Committee, the State Legislative and Regulatory Affairs Subcommittee and the Equipment Finance Regulatory and Compliance Subcommittee, and he serves as the Co-Chair of the Motor Vehicle Subcommittee.

He also has made many presentations and participated on numerous panels at the ELFA Legal Forum, an annual event for attorneys working in the equipment finance industry, and other ELFA events. At the 2019 ELFA Legal Forum in April, he participated on panels discussing the implications of consumer privacy law and current state legislative and regulatory agendas affecting equipment financers and lessors. He has also contributed articles on legal topics to the association’s Equipment Leasing & Finance magazine, including an analysis of applicable state licensing laws.

As Counsel in the Los Angeles office of Buckley LLP, Shah represents banks, fintechs, mortgage companies, auto lenders and other nonbank financial institutions in transactional, licensing, regulatory compliance and government enforcement matters covering mergers and acquisitions, consumer and commercial lending and leasing, equipment finance and supervisory examinations and enforcement actions involving state and federal agencies.

Prior to joining Buckley, Shah was Managing Counsel and Director of Vendor Management for Toyota Motor Credit Corporation. Before that, he was the Manager of Business and Legal Affairs for British Telecommunications (formerly Infonet), and an associate at New York law firm Friedman Kaplan Seiler & Adelman LLP, where he represented public and private corporations in mergers and acquisitions, debt and equity financings and commercial contracts. He began his career as an Assistant District Attorney with the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office. He received his J.D. from Boston University School of Law (cum laude) and his B.A. from Duke University. He is a Certified Information Privacy Professional (CIPP) and a certified Six Sigma Black Belt.
 
The award is named for ELFA’s former Vice President of Federal Government Relations, David H. Fenig, who served as an accomplished advocate on behalf of the equipment leasing and finance industry from 2004-2011.