Olivia Fragoso-Moore (B.A. ’13, J.D. ’17)
May 08, 2023 – Olivia Fragoso-Moore (B.A.’13, J.D. ’17) is excited about her new role as Vice President and Counsel in Consumer and Digital Finance at Goldman Sachs.
“I have learned so much on the job since I joined them four years ago and the fast-paced environment at Goldman Sachs has definitely helped me grow as an attorney,” said Fragoso-Moore. “I’m excited to continue to grow.”
Her new position is part of a small team that focuses on consumer and digital finance, where she handles an array of servicing and collections business and legal matters across a variety of consumer lending products, including personal loans and credit cards. Some of the things she reviews now, she touched on while studying for the bar.
“I remember studying the Holder Rule for the bar (a federal regulation meant to help consumers when a defective or fraudulent product or service is purchased with credit extended directly by the seller or arranged by the seller) and I was surprised to see it come up on the job.”
Fragoso-Moore always knew she wanted to become an attorney. Her mother worked as a paralegal and when she visited her mother at work, she was impressed by how the lawyers in the office carried themselves.
“They had a kind of determined nature to them that I grew to admire,” said Fragoso-Moore. “My mom always worked with great folks in every law firm, and they would share their world with me.”
The pull of law was so strong that Fragoso-Moore attended the Townview Law Magnet High School in her hometown of Dallas and was the first high-school legal intern at Norton Rose Fulbright, known then as Fulbright & Jaworski LLP. After graduating from the University of Houston with a Bachelor of Arts, Fragoso-Moore began making plans to apply to the UH Law Center.
“While in undergrad, I was in the work-study program at the Law Center in their External Affairs Department under a woman named Carol Davis and expressed my interest about going to law school,” said Fragoso-Moore. “She was so amazing at putting me in contact with law students and UHLC staff like Dean Sondra Tennessee.”
To this day, Davis still calls to check in on Fragoso-Moore. Davis and Tennessee were not the only ones who supported Fragoso-Moore during her time at the Law Center.
“I wasn’t top of my class but even then, the career services staff did a great job at helping me connect the dots and pursue opportunities,” said Fragoso-Moore. “It was about being persistent, the law school builds up that persistence and doesn’t let students fall through the cracks.”
She also learned to network in law school and became skilled at asking people about their experiences to help her figure out her own path.
For students looking to get into Consumer Finance, she recommends taking any classes in law school that applies to the topic. “I’m terrible at math and when you hear finance you think it’ll be about math, but it’s actually more about business and federal and state regulatory laws.”
Initially, Fragoso-Moore thought she would pursue entertainment law, but as she was working to put herself through law school, taking an internship in New York or L.A., the centers of the entertainment industry, was not an option at the time. This opened her up to other opportunities like probate law and personal injury defense and while her first role out of law school was perhaps not the perfect job, it was a start.
“I by no means have the blueprint for law school or choosing a career path, but I shoot every shot that I can since the worst thing someone can tell you is no. You come in thinking you’ll go one way, but you can always pivot, and it is all just part of the journey.”
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