Joshua C. Prever
Partner

Overview
Joshua Prever is a trial and appellate lawyer who focuses his practice on representing financial services companies. As a partner in Holland & Knight's Fort Lauderdale office, Mr. Prever represents Fortune 100 and 500 financial services companies along with midsize and boutique finance companies across the country in the mortgage servicing, FinTech, banking and nonbank lending spaces. Having defended his financial services clients in the courtroom, Mr. Prever puts the lessons learned from these lawsuits to good use by counseling his clients as they navigate a difficult regulatory and compliance landscape. Mr. Prever also has worked with financial services companies as both trusted outside and in-house counsel. After being embedded in the legal departments of both a federally regulated and a state licensed consumer finance company, his advice is grounded on the real-world operational issues, needs and business goals these institutions must address when adapting to new legal requirements.
A significant part of his practice is focused on preventing, and where necessary, resolving concerns raised by federal and state regulators. Mr. Prever's experience includes successfully counseling three large financial institutions as they worked with federal regulators to lift broad ranging consent orders. Through his work with financial institutions across the country, he has acquired extensive knowledge of default servicing and regulatory compliance issues concerning loan servicing in all 50 states, managing third-party vendors, creating and revising internal policies and procedures, and implementing regulatory directives from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), Office of the Comptroller of Currency (OCC), Federal Reserve Banks (FRB) and a host of state regulators. He also routinely provides guidance and support to financial institutions in responding to attorney general requests, mortgage and loan servicing audits conducted by investors, and outsourcing of default services to servicers and sub-servicers.
In addition, Mr. Prever is an authority on an important legal innovation – remote online notarization (RON) – and its ability to add flexibility for the financial services industry and others in an increasingly remote working environment. He also counsels clients on the implementation of this new technology to ensure compliance with the patchwork of state laws and regulations governing RON usage. He works with clients on RON's interplay with the Uniform Electronic Transactions Act (UETA), Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce Act, New York State Electronic Signatures and Records Act (ESRA), Illinois Electronic Commerce Security Act and other state laws to create electronic and digital signature processes allowing for fully electronic contracts – including residential and commercial loan agreements.
Mr. Prever is equally comfortable addressing issues before regulators as he is representing clients in the courtroom. He maintains an active litigation practice, including class actions, securities litigation, single-borrower actions relating to residential mortgages, commercial real estate cases, as well as other complex commercial litigation matters, insurance disputes, bankruptcy proceedings, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) inquiries and Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) matters.
Outside of the law firm, he lectures and writes on a variety of topics concerning the mortgage industry and in particular RON innovations, the CFPB's ever-changing role in the mortgage and financial services industry, as well as the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA), Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (RESPA), Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) and Truth in Lending Act (TILA).
As part of an active pro bono practice, Mr. Prever successfully represented victims of political persecution who sought asylum in the United States after being forced to flee their country. He organized workshops enlisting dozens of lawyers to assist Holocaust survivors in obtaining restitution benefits through the German Government Ghetto Fund. He routinely serves as attorney and guardian ad litem for children in need. He is a board member of Big Brothers Big Sisters Miami and serves as the chair of the Leadership Counsel for Take Stock in Children Miami, an organization that provides deserving low-income high school students with mentors and college scholarships.
Representative Experience
- First- and second-chair trial experience obtaining successful verdicts and decisions from both jury and judge
- Litigated a wide range of complex commercial cases involving claims of breach of contract, tort and fraud from the pleadings and discovery stages
- Coordinated large e-discovery projects
- Managed large docket of cases for financial services clients, and in product litigation matters – including those being handled through federal multi-district litigation
- Successfully defended class actions, multidistrict cases and mass actions
- Obtained favorable decisions for clients in appellate matters
- Submitted an amicus brief in the Florida Supreme Court on behalf of the Mortgage Bankers Association and the Mortgage Bankers Association of Florida regarding application of the statute of limitations on mortgage loans, assisting the mortgage industry to obtain a positive ruling
- Successfully defended a servicer and other financial services companies in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit relating to various defenses arising from foreclosure action
- Obtained favorable results for financial services company before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit concerning lender origination issues
- Received positive ruling from the Florida Third District Court of Appeal in favor of a client affirming a lower court ruling on jurisdictional and standing issues
- Successfully managed extensive teams of lawyers, legal personnel, consultants and third-party vendors in massive projects revamping lender/servicer business practices to ensure lifting of consent orders imposed by OCC and the FRB
- Implemented remote online notarization (RON) processes for a variety of financial institutions, from global multi-national banks, as well as nationally chartered and regional banks along with other industries as they seek to take advantage of digitizing financial and other transactions, as well as ensuring business continuity in crisis situations
- Conducted large-scale remediation projects for lenders/servicers, creating sworn document execution processes, putting in place robust vendor management programs
- Supervised vendor management functions for large loan servicers that used more than 100 law firms throughout the country
- Provided due diligence support during multiple loan service transfers to both servicers and subservicers in large mortgage servicing outsourcing projects
- Implemented Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) compliant loss mitigation programs
- Ensured compliance with state and federal laws and regulations governing servicers, including Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA), Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (RESPA), Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), Truth in Lending Act (TILA) and other laws and regulations
- Created law change processes monitoring new regulations, state and federal laws, and new case law
- Drafted standard letters issued to customers, including breach letters, pre-foreclosure notices and CFPB-mandated correspondence, as well as case-specific responses to qualified written requests
- Created and updated policies and procedures used by lenders/servicers to govern a variety of internal processes
Credentials
- University of Miami School of Law, J.D., magna cum laude
- Florida International University, B.A., magna cum laude
- District of Columbia
- Florida
- Virginia
- Florida Supreme Court
- U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida
- U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Florida
- U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida
- U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Middle District of Florida
- U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida
- U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Florida
- Supreme Court of Virginia
- U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia
- U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Virginia
- U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia
- U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Western District of Virginia
- Superior Court of the District of Columbia
- The Florida Bar's Constitutional Judiciary Committee, Member, 2020 - Present
- Big Brothers Big Sisters of Miami, Board Member, 2019 - Present; Vice President of Strategic Planning 2022 - Present
- Mortgage Bankers Association, Member, 2012 - Present
- Leadership Council for Take Stock in Children Miami, Member, 2016-2019; Chair, 2019-Present
- Legal Line Miami-Dade County, Member, 2008-2016; Chair, 2016-2018
- Leadership Miami, Member, 2008; Program Facilitator, 2009-2010
- University of Miami Law Review, 2002
- Client Service All-Star, The BTI Consulting Group, Inc., 2020
- Pro Bono Hero, Americans for Immigrant Justice, 2018
- Pro Bono Commitment Award, Dade County Bar Association, 2017
- Rising Star, Florida Super Lawyers, 2013-2016
- 40 Under 40 Outstanding Lawyers of Miami-Dade County, Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, 2012
- Order of the Coif