Practice Areas
Education
- Indiana University School of Law, J.D., 1979
- Butler University, B.A., 1973
- Sweet Briar College, 1969-1971
Bar & Court Admissions
- State of California
- State of Illinois
- State of Indiana
- State of New York
Karol K. Sparks
FAX: (312) 984-3150
Karol is a partner in the firm's financial institutions group. Her practice concentrates on corporate activities and regulatory issues of financial institutions, about which she has counseled banks for over 30 years. Her special emphasis is on the distribution of nontraditional bank products, including annuities, insurance, mutual funds, prepaid cards and other deposit account access devices, and the myriad federal and state laws and regulations that apply to those activities. She is the author of Insurance Activities of Banks, the definitive text on that subject.
Karol’s national practice was anchored during her four-year term as Chair of the American Bar Association’s 1,500 member Banking Law Committee. She is a frequent lecturer on issues relating to the regulation of financial institutions and is one of the founders, and serves on the faculty, of Banking Law Basics, a 3-day primer on banking law, sponsored by the ABA-CLE, and presented twice annually in San Francisco and Boston since 1998. Over 1,100 lawyers from across the United States and abroad have attended this course. She is also a founder and a member of the faculty of the follow-up program, Banking Law II held annually in Washington, DC or Chicago.
From 2001-2008, Karol taught banking and commercial law at the University of Iowa College of Law and has been a guest lecturer on banking law at the respective law schools of Northwestern, Boston University, American University and George Washington University. She currently is an adjunct professor at Wake Forest University School of Law, teaching contract drafting and secured transactions.
Karol is a past chair of the Banking Law Committee of the Business Section of the American Bar Association (1998-2002), having been an active member of the committee since 1985. She was a member of the Council of the Business Law Section of the ABA, the governing body of that organization, for a term ending in August 2008. As a member of the Council, she served on the Financial Committee and the Revenue Committee. She is Vice Chair and a member of the Publications Board.
Professional Activities and Honors
- Adjunct Professor, Wake Forest University School of Law
- Vice Chair, Publications Board, Business Law Section, American Bar Association
- Member, Board of Advisors of the Center for Banking and Finance, University of North Carolina Law School at Chapel Hill
- Member of Council, Business Law Section, American Bar Association, Term 2004-2008
- Banking Law Committee Chair, Business Law Section, American Bar Association, 1998-2002
- Adjunct Professor, University of Iowa College of Law, 2001-2008
- Distinguished Practitioner in Residence, Elon University School of Law, 2008-2010
Publications
- Client Action Alert - Shifting Consumer Compliance Environment
- Client Action Alert - Overdraft Programs
- Client Alert - Is it Time to "Spring Clean" Your Commercial Customer Agreements?
- Client Action Alert - REMINDER: FDIC Insurance Coverage Change
- Client Action Alert - FDIC Sweep Account Disclosure Rules Update
- Client Action Alert - FDIC Sweep Account Disclosure Rules
- Insurance Activities of Banks, Aspen Law & Business (March 1998 and updated annually)
- Mixing Banking and Insurance after Gramm-Leach-Bliley, Standard & Poors Review of Banking and Financial Services (2000)
- Freeing the Banks: What does Gramm-Leach-Bliley Do?, Business Law Today (2000)
- Is State Insurance Regulation Headed for Extinction?, Patricia McCoy, Editor, FINANCIAL MODERNIZATION AFTER GRAMM-LEACH-BLILEY (Matthew Bender & Co. 2002)
- Untangling Bank Regulation from State Insurance Regulation, Chapter 4, Clifford E. Kirsch, Editor, THE FINANCIAL SERVICES REVOLUTION: UNDERSTANDING THE CHANGING ROLES OF BANKS, MUTUAL FUNDS AND INSURANCE COMPANIES (Richard D. Irwin 1997)
Events & Speaking Engagements
- 2011 UNC Banking Institute (Charlotte, NC/March 2011)
- Faculty: Banking Law Basics, ABA-CLE twice annually since 1998 and Banking Law II, ABA-CLE, 2004 - present
- Frequent speaker on bank insurance issues at national CLE seminars