Garone Legal, PLLC  ·  Florida

Fintech & Consumer
Lending Counsel.

Fractional legal and compliance counsel for high-growth fintech, lending, and payments companies. Senior expertise. No overhead.

Former Head of Compliance, Upstart  ·  Built & scaled enterprise compliance programs
Schedule a Call About Cory  →
12+ Years Fintech
Experience
4 Core Service
Areas
0 Full-Time
Overhead
· CFPB Compliance · · Consumer Lending Regulation · · Fractional General Counsel · · Fintech Product Advisory · · Payments Regulatory Counsel · · FDIC Regulatory Experience · · Complaint Governance · · State Licensing Frameworks · · CFPB Compliance · · Consumer Lending Regulation · · Fractional General Counsel · · Fintech Product Advisory · · Payments Regulatory Counsel · · FDIC Regulatory Experience · · Complaint Governance · · State Licensing Frameworks ·
About
Cory Garone Connect on LinkedIn

Cory Garone

Founder & Principal Counsel

Cory Garone is a fintech and consumer lending attorney with 12+ years of experience at the intersection of law, compliance, and high-growth technology companies.

Most recently, Cory served as Head of Compliance at Upstart — one of the leading AI lending platforms in the country — where he built and scaled enterprise compliance programs across issue management, complaint governance, and regulatory readiness.

That operator experience is what makes Garone Legal different. Cory doesn't just advise from the outside. He's sat in the rooms where product decisions get made, worked directly with engineering teams on feature launches, and prepared companies for examinations by the CFPB, FDIC, and state regulators.

Garone Legal, PLLC is built for fintech and consumer lending companies that need senior legal and compliance counsel — without the overhead of full-time headcount.

Focus Fintech · Consumer Lending · Payments
Prior Role Head of Compliance, Upstart
Regulators CFPB · FDIC · State Examiners
Entity Garone Legal, PLLC · Florida
What We Do

Services framed
around outcomes.

Not a menu of generic legal tasks. Each engagement is structured to move your business forward — with counsel that has lived inside the compliance function, not just observed it.

01

Fractional
General Counsel

Senior legal and compliance support on a fractional basis — all the capability of a seasoned GC without the full-time cost or the clock-watching.

  • Ongoing regulatory and legal guidance
  • Board and executive-level advisory
  • Contract review and negotiation
  • Vendor and partner agreements
02

Compliance Program
Buildout

Built compliance at scale inside Upstart. That experience translates directly into programs that work in the real world — not just on paper.

  • Issue management frameworks
  • Complaint governance programs
  • Regulatory examination readiness
  • Policy and procedure development
03

Product & Regulatory
Advisory

Work directly with your product and engineering teams to ship features compliantly — fast. Compliance as an accelerant, not a brake.

  • Regulatory risk assessment for new products
  • Fair lending and UDAAP guidance
  • Feature launch legal review
  • State-by-state licensing strategy
04

Outside Counsel for
Lending & Fintech

Specialized outside counsel for companies that need deep fintech and consumer lending expertise — not a generalist firm learning your space on your dime.

  • CFPB, FDIC, and state regulator matters
  • Regulatory response and remediation
  • Policies, disclosures, and terms
  • M&A due diligence (regulatory)
Who We Serve

Built for companies
that move fast.

🏦

Fintech Lenders

Personal, consumer, and SMB lenders navigating federal and state compliance obligations at scale.

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📊

Consumer Credit Platforms

BNPL, embedded credit, and credit marketplace companies building compliant consumer products.

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💳

Payments Companies

Payments infrastructure, money transmission, and card program operators managing regulatory complexity.

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🏢

PE-Backed Financial Services

Portfolio companies that need institutional-grade compliance programs and legal infrastructure — built efficiently.

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This is for companies that are serious about compliance — and serious about not letting it slow them down.

The best fintech compliance programs aren't built by outside counsel who parachute in and write policies. They're built by operators who understand product roadmaps, engineering constraints, and what regulators actually care about.

That's the difference here.

The Difference

Why this counsel.
Why now.

01

Built It From Inside

Not advising from the outside — actually built and scaled enterprise compliance operations at Upstart, a leading AI lending platform. That's a different kind of knowledge.

Operator Experience
02

Product & Engineering Fluent

Can work directly in your product and engineering workflows. Speaks the language of sprints, launch timelines, and technical constraints — not just legal risk.

Cross-Functional
03

Growth-Enabling Mindset

The goal is never to block. It's to find the path forward that's legally sound and commercially viable. Compliance should be an accelerant, not a bottleneck.

Business-Oriented
04

Regulator-Aware

Deep experience with CFPB, FDIC, and state-level examiners. Understands what regulators look for, how examinations unfold, and how to be prepared.

Regulatory Depth
05

Fractional. Senior. Efficient.

Full-time general counsel experience on a fractional engagement model. You get a seasoned executive — without the headcount, the benefits, or the overhead.

Cost-Effective
06

One Tight Focus

Fintech. Consumer lending. Payments. Not a generalist firm that dabbles in financial services. Your sector is the only sector here.

Specialized
Get In Touch

Ready to move
faster — compliantly.

Whether you need fractional GC support, a compliance program built from the ground up, or outside counsel who actually understands fintech — the conversation starts here.

info@garonelegal.com

Schedule a Call

Typical response within one business day.