James M. Pietz
Jim Pietz is a Partner with Feinstein Doyle Payne & Kravec, LLC. His practice concentrates on representing consumers and enforcing the credit report and other consumer protection laws in cases on a nationwide basis. Jim has been working in the area of consumer law since December 1989. He deeply believes that working to enforce consumer protection laws not only provides important remedies to victims of unfair and deceptive business practices, but also serves to protect future consumers by eliminating those practices from the marketplace.
Throughout his career, Jim has worked to represent consumers in many different types of cases. Early on, he represented groups of persons who lost their money in purchasing vacation time-share interests in campgrounds in Ohio and Pennsylvania. He has represented consumers in cases against insurance companies for the deceptive sale of life insurance and the illegal force-placement of property insurance. More recently, he successfully represented consumers who have been subjected to improper or illegal practices by consumer reporting agencies or companies that use consumer or credit reports.
Jim obtained one of the first class certifications of a class of consumers under the Fair Credit Reporting Act. He has also handled numerous appeals in the state and federal courts around the country, many of which involved significant and important issues under the consumer laws. He is admitted to practice before the United States Supreme Court; as well as the Second, Third, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, Ninth, Tenth, and the District of Columbia Federal Circuit Courts of Appeal. He is also admitted to practice by the United States District Courts for the Northern District of Illinois and the Western District of Pennsylvania.
Jim is a graduate of Marquette University (1982) and the Chicago-Kent College of Law (1987) and has been given the highest possible rating (AV) by the Martindale-Hubbell Law Directory. He is has also a member in good standing of the bars of the State of Illinois since 1988 and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania since 1989.
Jim began representing consumers in 1989 when he joined the law firm, Berger, Kapetan, Malakoff & Meyers, which became Malakoff, Doyle & Finberg, P.C. in 1992. Jim practiced with this nationally known consumer and employee protection law firm until January 2007, when he established Pietz Law Office LLC, where he continued his work in consumer law. He joined FDPK as a Partner in January 2016.
Jim is a member of National Association of Consumer Advocates (www.naca.net) and the Allegheny County Bar Association.
In his spare time, Jim enjoys spending time with his wife and two daughters. Jim is also an avid sports fan.