Andrew J. Ogilvie is a Partner at KABOB. A graduate of Harvard University and the University of Wisconsin Law School, he was admitted to the State Bar of California in 1973 and the State Bar of Massachusetts in 1974. From 1973 to 1981 he was an associate at Pillsbury, Madison & Sutro in San Francisco where he handled complex commercial litigation, including antitrust and trademark cases. He then became a partner at Collette & Erickson where he handled real estate and environmental litigation. In 1987 he started his own practice and has since then specialized in consumer class actions and unfair competition cases.

In 1998, Andrew represented the consumer in the precedent setting case of Bank of America v Lallana 19 Cal. 4th 203 in which the California Supreme Court ruled that lenders who repossess and sell automobiles lose their right to collect on the unpaid balance of the loan (“the deficiency”) unless they strictly comply with all of California’s statutory requirements relating to the repossession and sale. In that case, the lender had not complied with California’s detailed notice requirements. The lender, Bank of America, had to return to its customers all of the money it had collected on these invalid deficiency claims.

In the same year, Andrew won an important legal point on behalf of consumers in Damian v Tamondong 65 Cal. App. 4th 1115. In that case, the California Court of Appeal held a lender who sues its customer to collect a deficiency claim and who then abandons the lawsuit because the consumer has valid defenses, must pay the consumer’s attorney fees. This enables consumers with good defenses to these deficiency claims to find lawyers to represent them in these cases. He has represented California consumers in numerous other cases that arose out of vehicle repossessions and has recovered deficiency payments for thousands of consumers who were wrongfully charged for auto loan deficiencies.

Andrew also represents consumers in credit reporting cases. Some credit reporting cases arise out of identity theft or mixed files. In those cases, the consumer’s credit report is unfavorable because the credit-reporting agency has included the delinquent accounts of other people in the credit report on the consumer. Other types of credit reporting cases involve persons or corporations looking at the consumer’s credit report without a permissible purpose.