Hassan A. Zavareei

From Gibson Dunn to the Other Side

Zavareei graduated cum laude from Duke University in 1990 with degrees in Comparative Area Studies and Russian, then earned his J.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, where he was elected to the Order of the Coif. He began at the Washington, D.C. office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher — a major defense firm — where he managed the defense of a nationwide class action against a major insurance carrier. He learned class-action litigation from the side that writes the fine print.

In 2002, he and Jonathan Tycko founded Tycko & Zavareei LLP with a mission built around economic justice: challenging the illegal and unfair fees charged by banks, credit unions, mortgage servicers, and other financial institutions.

Higher One: The Fees on Financial Aid

Higher One operated the accounts and debit cards through which many colleges delivered the financial aid left over after tuition — the money students needed for rent, food, books, and bus fare. Students challenged the ATM, transaction, maintenance, and inactivity fees layered onto those balances, along with marketing that allegedly made the sponsored account appear preferred or even required. Zavareei served as lead counsel in the coordinated multidistrict litigation.

Timing and choice sat at the center of the case. A student needing aid money promptly could not easily wait out a different delivery path, and choosing another bank could itself require a different delivery route. The claims examined whether disclosure, default pathways, and product design steered students toward charges they could have avoided. The settlement provided $15 million to class members — and changed the account policies governing how future financial-aid balances would be disbursed. The money remedied the past; the policy terms protected the students who came next.

Farrell: The Fee That Was Really Interest

Farrell v. Bank of America attacked a $35 extended-overdrawn-balance charge — a second fee imposed after the initial overdraft fee, whenever an account stayed negative for several days. Zavareei served as co-lead counsel.

The theory looked past the label. Plaintiffs alleged the later charge compensated the bank for carrying the negative balance during those days — which made it interest, and interest at a rate exceeding the limits of federal banking law. The case turned on what the bank actually supplied before the customer restored a positive balance, not on what the fee was called.

The settlement provided $37.5 million in cash, $29.1 million in debt relief, and a five-year halt to the challenged fee — an aggregate stated value of $66.6 million. Cash reimbursed class members; debt relief erased balances that would otherwise remain due; the practice term stopped the charge itself. The district court granted final approval, and the Ninth Circuit affirmed, preserving all three forms of relief.

Fifth Third: Taking the Bank to a Jury

Fifth Third Bank’s Early Access product offered a short advance against an upcoming direct deposit, at ten dollars per hundred borrowed. Repayment came automatically out of the next qualifying deposit — so the faster the paycheck arrived, the higher the annualized rate climbed, routinely into triple digits. Plaintiffs alleged the practice breached the account agreement, and Zavareei serves as co-lead counsel for the class.

The bank argued customers knew the ten-dollar fee. Zavareei’s team answered with the distinction that carried the case: knowing the fee is not knowing the annualized interest rate that the contract made relevant. A jury agreed, finding that Fifth Third breached its contract, and the district court also ruled for the class on the bank’s voluntary-payment defense.

On May 29, 2026, the Sixth Circuit certified questions concerning that defense to the Supreme Court of Ohio — asking what a customer must know before voluntary payment bars a contract claim involving a stated interest-rate limit. Ohio’s highest court will supply the governing state-law rule while the jury’s finding and the district court’s ruling remain part of the appellate record.

The Long Game

Zavareei practices as a partner from Washington, D.C., leading consumer class actions, trials, and appeals involving financial services and related products; his leadership roles have extended to matters including the Ring privacy litigation, where he was appointed interim lead counsel for families whose home cameras were hijacked by hackers, and the plaintiffs’ executive committee in multidistrict litigation against TD Bank.

Across Higher One, Farrell, and Fifth Third runs a single method: master the account disclosures, the transaction timing, the contract language, and the interest mathematics; build the class records; and be ready to carry the case through settlement administration, trial, or appeal — wherever it must go. Student refund pathways, account disclosures, overdraft timing, and automated charge rules supplied common records for classwide proof and prospective relief; the remedy followed the mechanism rather than treating each charge as an isolated event. He has argued in the D.C., Fourth, and Fifth Circuits, is admitted before the United States Supreme Court and multiple federal appellate courts, and is admitted in California, the District of Columbia, and Maryland.