PEP Episode 073 — Change Drives Payments & Your Choices Decide Survival | Smart Growth Safer Deals

This special episode flips the script.

Instead of hosting, James Huber, Esq.—Managing Partner of Global Legal Law Firm (https://www.globallegallawfirm.com/po…) and co-host of The Payments Experts Podcast—steps into the hot seat as the guest, interviewed by Rob Hoblit, Chief Revenue Officer at NMI (https://www.nmi.com/), during one of their internal Fireside Chats, now shared publicly for the first time.

🔍 The conversation is candid, tactical, and tailored for operators in the payments ecosystem—ISOs, PayFacs, fintech teams, and software platforms alike. It’s not about contracts for the sake of contracts. It’s about understanding how and why deals actually fail: because of misaligned incentives, shallow diligence, or premature handshakes—not because a clause was missing.

James pulls back the curtain on:

• How payments litigation really unfolds, where ego often drives escalation as much as dollars
• The cost of educating outside counsel vs. working with payments-fluent legal teams
• Why underwriting discipline and real-time oversight are more essential than ever in the VAMP era
• What the next wave of surcharging enforcement could mean for ISOs and platforms
• Why dual pricing models, “compliance-in-a-box” kits, and proper signage remain hot-button issues
• The litigation-laced future of crypto, stablecoins, and alt-rails—and why Visa and Mastercard aren’t going anywhere

Plus: If you’re scaling toward an acquisition or preparing to raise capital, James shares actionable advice on structuring deals, diligencing counterparties, and avoiding the regulatory landmines that can nuke valuations before a term sheet is signed.

⚖️ Whether you’re onboarding your first 100 MIDs or navigating multi-million dollar disputes, this conversation delivers sharp insights on how to protect your margin, reputation, and roadmap—before things go sideways.

*Matters discussed are all opinions and do not constitute legal advice.  All events or likeness to real people and events is a coincidence.*

Transcript

James Huber (00:00):

Every company has an exit point, right? Nobody was going to do it forever except for me and Jeremy. And you’ve got to be looking at what’s the out for everybody when you’re getting into this and what’s the goal when you’re going to this agreement? What is NAMI’s goal in this partnership? We are just going to take deals from these guys. Okay? Let’s look at their business. What type of deals are they doing? Are they cramming stuff through that shouldn’t be here and ask around. And I mean, the good thing is there’s a lot of a more, at least there’s a lot of ways to educate yourself on the industry. I’ve been told our podcast is a great source for that.

Jeremy Stock  (00:46):

Welcome to the Payments Experts podcast, a podcast of global legal law firm. We hope you enjoy this episode.

Rob Hoblit (01:01):

James Huber is an expert payments litigator, cryptocurrency consultant, husband and father of two, and works heavily in the compliance field, helping electronic payment processing companies avoid getting fined, arrested, violate rules or get sued from internal or external threats. Drawing on experience from white collar, criminal defense, civil litigation, and general business advice, including heavy litigation in the payment space. James successfully advises his clients how to avoid litigation, but some clients contact global when it’s too late to avoid litigation. And many clients have learned that litigation can also be used as a powerful sword when you have the right attorneys, James, therefore litigates often that includes defending and pursuing electronic payments companies. James is also well-versed in mergers and acquisitions, compliance, contract review, internal operations, regulatory defense, including F-T-C-C-F-P-B-D-O-J, ag Class Actions and all the legal aspects that affect a business. James is also the host of the Payment Experts podcast that I had the pleasure of being on a few weeks ago, and I think our episodes are just being published this week. So James, welcome to the podcast. Thank you for joining us this morning. And let’s start with your journey. How did you first get involved in the payments industry and what’s kept you going over the years?

James Huber (02:32):

Yeah, thanks. How I got started in this, we had a law firm and it was basically an open door law firm, which is whatever walks through the door you take, but we had one ISO client and they were the worst of the worst as far as sales organizations. They would go in and lease you five VX twenties for a thousand bucks a month, tell they’re going to save rates, and then when they try and cancel, they’d have to talk to me. And so I am doing all this law and I’m seeing this one client grow. Why we had them. They grew from 16 people to 300, and basically this one client is supporting our whole firm. And I’m talking to the clients and they’re going, Hey, if you want to pick up more of these clients, go to the ETA. And I go to the ETA, and I’m walking around and I see all these guys back in 2010 dressed to the nine quadruple fisting beers, talking about what they do with their merchants and everything.

James Huber (03:35):

And I’m going, oh my gosh, we have one client supporting our small firm. I just met two thousands of these guys. So we saw the opportunity because I’m going around talking to people and I’m going, who’s your attorney? Who’s your attorney? And they all mentioned the same three guys. And I’m going, well, three’s not enough. So we made the decision to just get rid of everything except for payments, and it’s been great. And the thing that’s kept me here is I like working with really smart people. I mean, the payments space, no matter what happens in this area, you guys always figure out how to keep going and do stuff. And that’s what we have to do as lawyers. The laws are changing or the laws are what they are. We have to figure out how to make them not apply or make them apply. So it’s very complimentary.

Rob Hoblit (04:30):

Nice. Well, tell us just a little bit about yourself just by way of introduction. What do you like to do when you aren’t doing solving payments, legal problems? And before you answer that, let me just remind the folks on the call that we have a q and a link in the chat. Feel free to add your questions or if you want to ask them live, we’ll have an opportunity at the end. But tell us about James, what do you do when you aren’t doing this?

James Huber (04:55):

Yeah, well, I do a lot of this. So outside of it, I’ve got two young kids, seven and 10, and they’re pretty much taking up all the time outside of here. But when I get out, I like to go surf. I’m right here. We’re what, three minutes from the beach right here at the office. So that’s really my recreational activity. And then Jeremy’s work in the real host of the podcast and we like to Frisbee golf from time to time.

Rob Hoblit (05:26):

Yeah, Jeremy is the guy behind the guy here who has helped us out this morning. Thank you, Jeremy for the help. So talk to us about Global legal law firm. First off, how did you come up with that name and how do you support clients in the payment space?

James Huber (05:44):

Yeah, well, we came up with that name. This was that one client who, like I said, they were just the worst possible sales organization. It was great for us though, because right at the end of their reign of terror, they’re getting sued in three class actions a month. So we learned class action defense, and we hired some real attorneys at the time because in the early in your career, you have to just pretend like you know what you’re doing. And they showed us the ropes and then we were been able to do it, but the name, it was his ideas. He’s like, you want to sound like your clients. And so the original name was Global Legal Resources. And then some guy came and he’s like, it sounds like a staffing company or something. And we’re like, well, let’s make sure there’s no confusion, global legal law firm, and maybe we would change the name, but at this point it’s too late. And we never wanted it to be Huber Dryden, not really the idea of our firm. Our idea is separate ourselves so that we don’t have to be the one of people who are always like, well, I want to talk to the partner. And they’ll be like, usually it’s to me because I’m swearing and yelling at the attorney and they’re going, I want to talk to the partner. And I was like, well, you got a motherfucker deal with it.

Rob Hoblit (07:12):

Wow, okay. Yeah. You find that goes well when you take that approach?

James Huber (07:17):

Yeah, yeah. It depends on the case. It depends on the person. Sometimes you have to be the raging asshole pit bull attorney. And it’s funny because you bump into those guys and you’re like, ah, I get your shtick, and then you hang up, you see ’em outside the courtroom and they’re still an asshole. And I was like, well, I’m just playing a part. I can turn it off and on. But some of these guys, they’ve just got one gear, one

Rob Hoblit (07:43):

Mode. Yeah.

James Huber (07:44):

But no, it’s a small pool still. Like when I said when we got into the space, there was maybe five attorneys. Now there’s probably 20, 15 maybe law firms that no payments. And most of us get along. And when we run into each other, which we running into all the time, except for these two guys I’m talking about, and their firms, which run that playbook, we all get along and we save the clients tons of money because we’re going, look, we know what the dispute is. We’re not going to make big issues over everything. The idea is to get you out of this for the least amount of money as possible. And because we’re so entrenched in the space, it’s not a one and done where I’d love to pick up some cases every once in a while where it’s just this dispute. I’ve got this guy and I’m going to bill him like crazy, get him a great result.

James Huber (08:38):

And then maybe three years from now when they forget about how much they hated the litigation, they’ll give me a call. In our case, it’s usually existing clients or it’s clients that we want. We want to help them with their contracts and their compliance and everything ongoing. So we have this extra incentive and the requirement to do things efficiently. And sometimes it’s more efficient to be the snarling pit bull attorney that won’t do anything, but most of the time it’s collaborate, work it out, get everyone to the table and settle, but some people just don’t want to.

Rob Hoblit (09:10):

Do you litigate then around the country? Are there areas that you generally go to more than others or

James Huber (09:17):

Yeah. Well, our main office is in California. We have an office in South Florida. But yeah, we’re nationwide because there’s just not a lot of payments attorneys we hear all the time. We’ll pick up a case halfway through and they’re going, I spend 80 grand teaching my lawyer how to do this. And he still doesn’t get it. He kind of gets it, and he’s a good attorney, but you kind of need to know the intricacies and the players and who to subpoena and the pressure points and all of that. But yeah, we’re nationwide and our litigation, we have a lot in California. We have a lot in Florida, we have a lot in New York, but it’s also pretty spread out. And then a ton in Texas too.

Rob Hoblit (09:57):

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, south Florida is a good place, I think, for your space. So definitely not a surprise to hear you guys are operating there. Why do you think payments is, or what drives the industry, I guess I should say, in terms of the legal issues? And do you think there, are you got any tips for us on under the radar issues that we should be thinking about or you think are going to rear their ugly head here in the coming days?

James Huber (10:27):

Yeah, I mean, we talked about this I think a little on your when you came on, but I think vamp is a huge issue coming. And I’ll back up because the first part of your question of what drives the industry, it’s change.

James Huber (10:43):

And then what drives litigation? It’s egos mostly for ours. One of the reasons we love payments litigation is we’re not fighting over somebody losing a leg or a kid or anything like that. It’s usually about money. And then it’s not even that much about money. It’s about setting an example and being right. But what drives the industry is change and growth. I mean, when we got in there were people still running the knuckle busters. And then when we saw Clover come out, that was the big unveiling. I think I went to some clover event and the first day, the old guys dancing down the aisle with this clover. I think I went home right then, actually. Yeah, you just left. Yeah, I think I just got out. I was like, I’m good. This isn’t for me. But yeah, no, the change, and I think vamp, if it rolls out, which has it rolled out already? I mean, I don’t know. It hasn’t started yet.

Rob Hoblit (11:48):

I think supposedly starting any minute may have started, but not clear yet.

James Huber (11:54):

Not clear yet. And I’ve talked to some people at the mid to smaller size banks, I think they’re the ones that are going to get pushed out. And nobody seems to be that worried about it, but I still don’t think anybody really gets how it’s going to be rolled out. It keeps changing. So I think that’s a huge one coming down the pipeline.

Rob Hoblit (12:20):

And so what are some common legal mistakes that you see people, and I’m sure you have plenty of examples. Do you have an example of somebody who just got in deep trouble and it was avoidable? Or if they’d just done something simple, they could have not been in such big trouble?

James Huber (12:43):

Yeah, I mean, that’s basically all we deal with is people that could have done things differently. I mean, the biggest mistake is the big overarching one is this Warren Buffet quote is you can’t make a good deal with bad people. People come and they’re going, oh, I’ve got this contract. I’m going to make it airtight. Doesn’t matter how good your contract is now, it helps once you get there, but there’s players in this space that just want to fight, and they like it and they cheat, and they hire attorneys that cheat and lie and all of that, and they like it. And that tactic doesn’t work forever, but it might work in your dispute. So the idea is stay away from the bad players and who are the bad players? You got to ask around and do some due diligence. And new people pop into the space these days. They’re usually pretty good from outside of the industry, but there’s some old blood flowing through the industry of these people that have these bad reputations. So that’s the first one is just stay away from toxic people business everywhere. And then the second,

Rob Hoblit (14:01):

What’s a red flag? If you’re a noob who’s just new on the scene, how do you tell someone is trouble or what do you look for?

James Huber (14:11):

I mean, you’ve got to ask around because it’s hard. I mean, the people that are these bad dudes and bad ladies and all that out there, they’re really good at convincing you that they’re not. So really, the thing is you’ve got to ask around. And we’re a great source for that because we run into all the bad people, of course. So people will hit us up and they’ll be like, Hey, what do you know about this company? And they’ll be like, nothing. They must be good because we’ve been doing this for going on 15, 16, 17 years or so. So we’ve seen it. But yeah, it’s hard to tell. I mean, get your poker player skills out. But actually, I have a client who is a ranked poker player, and he didn’t read these guys either.

Rob Hoblit (15:00):

Wow. All right. Well, it just goes to show, you got to get some advice here.

James Huber (15:07):

Our main clientele is the ISOs now are all tech companies according to them. So yeah, nothing bad to say, only hesitant. Good.

Rob Hoblit (15:21):

Okay, good. Thank you. That’s good to know. And yeah, I guess the less the better. In your line of work, if you were advising our team, I think you touched on it in saying sort of avoid toxic people, but what would you advise us? Anything beyond that in terms of staying ahead of legal or regulatory challenges? And as we’re thinking through contracts, compliance, partnerships, that kind of a thing. If you were just to say, Hey, NMI, you should really think about this. Is there something you would call out there?

James Huber (15:59):

Yeah, there’s a big thing of NMI. Every company has an exit point, right? Nobody was going to do it forever except for me and Jeremy. And you’ve got to be looking at what’s the out for everybody when you’re getting into this and what’s the goal when you’re going to this agreement? What is NAMI’s goal in this partnership? We are just going to take deals from these guys. Okay, let’s look at their business. What type of deals are they doing? Are they cramming stuff through that shouldn’t be here and ask around? And I mean, the good thing is there’s a lot of, now there’s a lot more, at least there’s a lot of ways to educate yourself on the industry. I’ve been told our podcast is a great source for that, but the ETA cranks out educational tracks, but I think they started charging for them. So I don’t know about all that, but yeah, is keep your ear to the track. One of the reasons we’ve been so successful in this space is because we have to stay up on everything going on. Because

James Huber (17:09):

As we’re looking at contracts and m and a stuff, we’re going, oh, hey, in five minutes, you’re not going to be allowed to do this anymore. And surcharge and cash discounting came out. Visa dropped that bomb on everybody. It was a scramble. Everybody was doing it wrong. And now companies are getting fined millions of dollars from secret shoppers going around and tagging this stuff. So I mean, there were hints that was coming. I don’t think anyone saw it coming the way they dropped it, but there were signs, and if you’d been ahead of that, you could have really cleaned up.

Rob Hoblit (17:46):

Do you think on surcharging, the dual pricing, are we at an equilibrium right now or is there another shoe that’s about to drop on that topic or stay tuned? Hard to say.

James Huber (18:00):

It’s hard to say. I mean, the states have gotten in on it and they’ve started dropping different regulations on that, and some of them are inconsistent with Visa and MasterCard. Most of them are inconsistent in our favor, meaning they’re higher caps and looser regulations kind of. California’s got a really, really squishy one, but I think that the regulation in that space will come through litigation. I don’t think Visa, you’re not going to force them to do anything. They spend more on lobbying than anybody. He said, not God, don’t say God. Yeah, because that I guarantee spends more than Visa.

Rob Hoblit (18:51):

Does Jeremy come into court too with you and just whisper things in your ear to make sure you don’t say the wrong thing?

James Huber (18:57):

No, he probably needs to.

Rob Hoblit (18:59):

You should think about that. Yeah.

James Huber (19:00):

Well, no, his main thing is he’s trying to censor me for s Eing the podcast, there’s certain things you can’t say or it drops to zero.

Jeremy Stock  (19:09):

Exactly.

Rob Hoblit (19:10):

Oh, I see. Okay. Got it. Okay. Well, this is, don’t worry. I mean, this distribution that we’re on right here is totally clean and you can say whatever you want.

James Huber (19:19):

Alright.

Rob Hoblit (19:20):

Tell it like it is.

James Huber (19:21):

Yeah. Okay. Oh, now I forgot what we were talking about.

Rob Hoblit (19:25):

All right. Well, whatever. Yeah, I think it was, I think something on that along

James Huber (19:29):

Lines. Oh yeah. So I think it’s going to come through. I think the merchants need to start suing for regulation. And the problem is every single merchant, they have an arbitration agreement. But maybe if they’re suing the states, again, you remember the first time that worked where they overturned New York’s law, but then Visa did it and that didn’t work. So I think to get Visa to move on, that is going to be difficult because they’ve said outright. I moderated a panel a couple of years ago with Rob Johnson from Visa, and he said straight up, the reason we’re doing this is we don’t want people surcharging because we don’t want cardholders complaining and we don’t want more regulation. And we’re all sitting here going, huh, we would love some regulation in this space. We have clients all the time operating in the gray. There’s no set rules. If we were lay down some harder rules, now we’ve got the visa rules. But those are so selectively enforced.

Rob Hoblit (20:33):

Yeah. Okay. Sounds like the future is not written yet.

James Huber (20:39):

It is not. It’s constantly

Rob Hoblit (20:41):

Changing. Sounds like it’s changing. Alright. Another topic I know you’re a fan of is cryptocurrencies, seemingly the wave of the future in payments and may always be the wave of the future. Do you have any prognostications on how that’ll settle, whether we’re actually going to be using Bitcoin to buy things or going to be using government backed crypto? Or are we just going to keep talking about this and investing in speculative assets to try to make money? What’s going on here? What’s your take

James Huber (21:20):

As far as the non-stable coins with your second statement? I don’t think those are going to be used for anything other than speculative investment. So that’s that. I think that the stable coin, I mean, look, the administration is in flux. I’ll say it. Hopefully there’s a change in a couple years. It sounds like there might not be, but this is a very crypto administration, but they haven’t pushed their, the Fed Now, stablecoin is hard. When that was coming out, a bunch of us were kind of going, Ooh, if our money is all trackable and everything like this, and I think it was it Patty Murphy from the Green Sheet, she was like, what if they put an expiration date on your money? You have to spend it, Alan. Oh, that was Alan. Yeah. Okay. So you have to spend it, or they’re just tagging you for your parking fees. They’re tagging you for your alimony and everything like that. I mean, I think there’s some big brother scarcity there, but they haven’t really pushed it. I mean, I do think stable coin will hit. I don’t think it’s going to be overnight, even though again, it could be. It could be, right. Hey, all dollars are going out of circulations. Didn’t they stop making pennies?

Rob Hoblit (22:50):

I think it costs more to make a penny than it costs more than one penny to make a penny is the problem there,

James Huber (22:56):

Right. So I mean, look, if they stop printing cash, yeah, let’s go. And I mean, everybody has a phone at this point. A little tricky. But you maybe have to have a separate little thing that has your money on it. It’d still be a card, but I don’t think it takes a Visa and MasterCard out of the picture. Okay. All right. Good.

Jeremy Stock  (23:20):

Thank you for listening to this episode of the Payments Experts podcast, a podcast of global legal law firm. Visit us online today at global legal law firm.com. Matters discussed are all opinions and do not constitute legal advice. All events or likeness to real people and events is a coincidence.