Daniel Wheeler is a financial services innovator who brings creativity, sound judgment and intellectual rigor to his work. Dan is adept at supervising teams and cultivating talent, risk management, and building a strong, sustainable enterprise. Dan is effective in building rapport
and credibility with regulators.

Dan functions as an R&D lab for his financial services clients, helping them invent businesses and products through innovative regulatory strategy.  This includes helping clients decide on a regulatory identity that best suits their cost and operational constraints. Mr. Wheeler helps clients solve significant regulatory challenges. Sometimes this involves intervention and advocacy with the Federal Reserve, FDIC, OCC, NCUA, CFPB, FinCEN and state financial regulators, as well as negotiation of enforcement actions.

Dan has deep experience in guiding banks, fintechs, and crypto companies in solving challenges, including litigation or disputes among banks, vendors and service providers. Other times it may be in strategic partnerships or acquisitions.

Dan has advised lenders in efficiently and safely closing a wide variety of credit transactions, including large syndicated loans, master trust indenture transactions, asset-based and commercial real estate loans and the related interest rate swap transactions. Mr. Wheeler has advised on loan administration, collections and enforcement, sales of loan portfolios, loan participations, and intercreditor agreements.

R. Paul Soter, Jr. is licensed to practice law in California. He earned his B.A. from the University of California in 1973 and his J.D. from Hastings College of the Law in 1977.  He spent five years in the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General’s Corps in Germany working in international law, claims, administrative law, and criminal law before joining California First Bank (now Union Bank) where he was the sole consumer credit attorney for several years.

He was a member of the inter-institution task force that established the Star System shared ATM network, and was the primary counsel to the Bank’s Credit Card, Installment Lending, Electronic Banking, and Residential Loan departments.  He was active in the California Bankers Association as a member of its State Government Relations Committee and as Chair of its Regulatory Compliance Committee. Soter practiced with two major San Francisco law firms and a boutique firm specializing in consumer financial services before founding the Law Offices of Paul Soter in 1997. 

Mr. Soter serves on the Board of Director of First Federal Savings and Loan Association of San Rafael, to which he is also General Counsel. He is General Counsel to the California Financial Services Providers.

Mr. Soter is a frequent speaker on numerous retail banking and consumer financial service subjects to various industry groups and trade associations, including the California Bankers Association, the California Financial Service Providers, the Financial Service Centers of America (now INFiN), the Online Lenders Association, the Small Dollar Lending Association, the San Francisco Bar Association, and the Colorado Check Cashers Association. He has previously served on the California State Bar Association’s Consumer Financial Services Committee and Financial Institutions Committee.