Rusty A. Payton

I formed Payton Legal Group upon deciding to exit the large law firm corporate litigation practice of my two prior law firms. My animating purpose was to build a practice which was more consumer/individual oriented where I could control case selection, development and advocacy. My intent was to practice law in a professionally more rewarding practice and to collaborate with attorneys that I saw as innovative, ethical and motivated to provide quality legal work.

I built a successful practice in real estate and consumer litigation due in large part from my ability to draw clients from my work as the owner and managing broker of Smart Property/ Rent Smart USA (discussed below). Of course, the real estate market took a dramatic downturn in 2008 and my firm pivoted to representing former real estate clients experiencing financial distress following the collapse in valuations. I represented hundreds of consumers in foreclosure and bankruptcy matters.

Frustrated with how mortgage lenders and their servicers had engaged in massive abuse, I became motivated to develop new defenses and with the 2014 enactment of the Dodd-Frank RESPA servicing rules I was thrust into a new practice area at its inception - mortgage servicing litigation. I was able to associate with Attorneys through my participation in industry leading bootcamps led by Max Gardner and other innovative and like-minded attorneys. I was then able to bring new skills to actually give homeowners a chance to fight back and right the wrongs of mortgage servicing abuse.

Presently, I work on a referral basis and associate with counsel throughout the country as co-counsel on cases that set the standards in this practice area. I enjoy the opportunity to select cases that can be impactful in the lives of my clients as well as serving to build an area of the law still in its infancy.

An interest in residential real estate and an entrepreneurial spirit drove me to obtain my managing broker real estate license and open a residential real estate practice. I was able to grow that business from one office and three agents to five locations and one hundred fifty real estate professionals. That success grew from my development and implementation of a software and database management system that streamlined the advertisement of real estate sales and rental listings allowing agents to manage and post listings to the firm's web site and to multiple third party web sites at the moment when traditional brick and mortar brokerages were still using antiquated MLS systems that served to secret property information from clients to control access. Our animating philosophy was to do the opposite by providing a data driven database that allowed the real estate consumer a single forum to define their own search criteria and obtain unfiltered data that was accurate and targeted to the client's needs. The firm became the leading agency in Chicago for residential real estate rentals.

In 2011, I sold the firm to RealtyMX in New York, which was subsequently acquired by Redfin.

Lead partner in firm's business insolvency and bankruptcy reorganization group responsible for the representation of large commercial real estate firms in insolvency, reorganization and default matters.

My legal career began here where my practice focus was large SEC class action defense on behalf of leading accounting firms in connection with corporate insolvency.