Karol K. Sparks

Karol concentrates her practice on corporate activities and regulatory issues of financial institutions, about which she has counseled banks for over 40 years. Her special emphasis is on the distribution of nontraditional bank products, including annuities, insurance, mutual funds, and on treasury management and related commercial deposit account services, and the myriad of 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, and the author of Banking Law Essentials (2021) and The Keys to Banking Law: A Handbook for Lawyers, now in its Third Edition (2020).

Karol’s national practice was anchored during her four-year term as Chair of the American Bar Association’s 2,000 member Banking Law Committee. She is one of the founders, and served on the faculty, of Banking Law Basics, a three-day primer on banking law, sponsored by ABA-CLE, and presented twice annually in San Francisco and Boston from 1998 through 2010 and is one of the faculty of the successor program Banking Law Fundamentals offered twice annually from 2011 to the present.  It is currently sponsored by Boston University School of Law in June and Chicago-Kent Law School in November. Over 1,600 lawyers from across the United States and abroad have attended these courses.

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 was an adjunct professor at Wake Forest University School of Law, teaching contract drafting, secured transactions and financial services regulation, from 2008-2014, and a lecturer of law at the Boston University School of Law Graduate Program in Banking and Financial Law from 2014-2019.

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.  Following her tenure as chair of the committee, she was appointed 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.  Having been a member of the Publications Board since 2008, she was its Chair from 2012-2014.

Admissions

• State of California
• State of Illinois
• State of Indiana
• State of New York

Education

• Indiana University School of Law, J.D., 1979
• Butler University, B.A., 1973
• Sweet Briar College, 1969-1971

• Leading Lawyers Network (2005-2023)
• Client Choice Award, Banking category for Illinois, Lexology Client Choice Awards USA (2016)

• Lecturer of Law, Banking and Financial Law, Boston University School of Law Graduate Program (2014-2019)
• Chair, Publications Board, Business Law Section, American Bar Association (2012-2014)
• Adjunct Professor, Wake Forest University School of Law (2008-2014)
• Vice Chair, Publications Board, Business Law Section, American Bar Association (2010-2012)
• Distinguished Practitioner in Residence, Elon University School of Law (2008-2010)
• Council Member, Business Law Section, American Bar Association (2004-2008)
• Adjunct Professor, University of Iowa College of Law (2001-2008)
• Member, Board of Advisors of the Center for Banking and Finance, University of North Carolina Law School at Chapel Hill
• Banking Law Committee Chair, Business Law Section, American Bar Association (1998-2002)