Atlas
Back to Payments
Legal / Service Provider·Payments

Richard B. Levin

Partner and Chair of FinTech Practice at Taft Stettinius & Hollister LLP

Denver, CO

RB
LinkedIn
Why they matter

A Chambers-ranked fintech/payments regulatory lawyer who has built and led three top-tier fintech practices, giving him a rare cross-firm view of the payments and digital-asset regulatory landscape.

Background

Richard B. Levin is Chair of the FinTech Practice at Taft Stettinius & Hollister LLP, which he joined in May 2025 after chairing the FinTech and Regulation practices at Nelson Mullins and, before that, Polsinelli (which he founded in 2016). Practicing fintech law since the late 1990s, he is widely regarded as one of the first lawyers to focus on blockchain and digital asset regulation, advising broker-dealers, exchanges, ATSs, and digital currency and payments platforms before the SEC, CFTC, FINRA, FinCEN, and OCC.

Notable deals

  • 2025
    Joined Taft Stettinius & Hollister LLP as partner and Chair of the FinTech Practice, moving from Nelson Mullins
  • 2025
    Co-authored 'Stranger things have happened: The evolving regulation of staking' chapter in Chambers' Global Practice Guide, Fintech 2025 (7th ed.)
  • 2024
    Ranked by Chambers USA in 'FinTech Legal: Blockchain & Cryptocurrencies' for the 7th consecutive year while chair of Nelson Mullins' FinTech practice
  • 2021
    Named by Business Insider among '19 Crypto and Blockchain-Focused Lawyers Who Are Inking Deals, Fighting Lawsuits and Navigating Fast-Evolving Regulations'

Call-prep brief

Background

  • Chair of Taft's FinTech Practice (joined May 2025); previously chaired FinTech and Regulation practices at Nelson Mullins and Polsinelli, the latter of which he founded in 2016.
  • Practicing fintech/payments law since the late 1990s; started as GC of an early electronic communications network (ECN) and held senior compliance roles at major investment banks on Wall Street and in London.
  • Chambers-ranked in 'FinTech Legal: Blockchain & Cryptocurrencies' annually since 2018.

Current focus

  • Regulatory counsel to broker-dealers, ATSs/exchanges, payment platforms, and digital-asset trading firms before the SEC, CFTC, FINRA, FinCEN, and OCC.
  • Actively publishing on staking, stablecoins, and digital-currency regulation (2025 Chambers guide chapter on staking).

What he cares about

  • Regulatory clarity for fintech/payments innovators; frequently frames his work as helping firms 'build businesses' within an evolving rulebook rather than pure defense work.
  • Visible thought leadership — press quotes, conference panels (e.g., 2025 CB+DC Conference), bylines.

Sensitivities

  • Client relationships are confidential — no named clients are public; expect him to speak in generalities about specific engagements.
  • Third firm move in under a decade (Polsinelli → Nelson Mullins → Taft); worth probing his rationale and book-of-business portability.

Questions to ask

  1. Which payments/merchant-acquiring regulatory issues (state money-transmitter licensing, card network rules, stablecoin settlement) are generating the most client demand right now?
  2. What drove the move to Taft in 2025, and did his fintech client base move with him?
  3. Which regulators (OCC, FinCEN, state MTLs) does he see as the biggest swing factor for payments/merchant-acquiring deals over the next 12-18 months?

Outreach draft

Subject
Quick call on payments regulatory landscape?
Hi Richard, I came across your work chairing Taft's FinTech Practice and your long track record advising payments and digital-asset platforms through SEC, CFTC, and state regulatory regimes. We're a private equity team doing diligence on the merchant-acquiring and payments space and would value your read on where regulatory risk and opportunity are heading — particularly around money-transmitter licensing and emerging stablecoin settlement rules. Would you have 20-30 minutes in the next couple of weeks for a paid advisory call? Happy to work around your schedule. Best, [Placeholder Name]

Linked companies

Sources

Strongest evidencePage title7 public sourcesVerified2026-08-09How the grades work