The Protecting the Transaction Legal Summit is the rent-to-own industry’s premier convening of legal and compliance professionals, hosted annually by APRO, the Association of Professional Rental Organizations and the national trade association for the rent-to-own industry. The 2026 Summit takes place August 24, 2026, from 1:00 PM to 3:00 PM EDT, marking the third consecutive year of the gathering. It brings together general counsel, compliance officers, regulatory specialists, business owners, and executives from across the full spectrum of the industry, including traditional rent-to-own, virtual rent-to-own (VRTO), and lease-to-own (VLTO) operators. No other meeting in the industry assembles this concentration of legal and compliance expertise for sustained, substantive analysis of the questions that determine how the transaction is structured, disclosed, and defended.
What distinguishes the Summit from a conventional regulatory update is its subject. Legal developments matter, and the Summit covers them with the depth practitioners require, but the 2026 program moves deliberately toward the harder conversation: what the industry owes itself. Self-regulation is not a defensive posture adopted after the fact. It is the work of deciding, before anyone else decides for you, what a well-run transaction looks like and holding the industry to that answer. Standards built with intention read differently than standards imposed from outside, and they hold up better under scrutiny, in litigation, and in front of legislators who are trying to understand an industry they did not grow up in.
The Summit’s authority comes from the people in the room. Attendees are the practitioners who write the contracts, train the store teams, respond to the state attorneys general, and carry the consequences of getting compliance wrong. The discussion is candid because the participants have standing to be candid with one another. For any legal or compliance professional working in rent-to-own or lease-to-own, the Protecting the Transaction Legal Summit is the annual meeting where the industry’s operating standards are examined, argued, and advanced.
APRO is the organization that makes a gathering like this possible. As the national trade association for the rent-to-own industry, headquartered in Austin, Texas, APRO has served as the central hub of the industry for decades, representing operators, manufacturers, suppliers, and service providers across all fifty states and internationally. That convening role is not incidental to the association’s mission; it is the mission. APRO develops and maintains the industry’s best practices standards, advocates for sound rent-to-own statutes at the state and federal level, produces the educational programming that trains store-level teams and executives alike, and brings the industry together at events like the Protecting the Transaction Legal Summit and RTO World, the industry’s annual convention. Consumer protection and legal compliance are the through-line. The association exists to ensure that the rent-to-own transaction serves the customer well and that the operators offering it understand, in detail, what that obligation requires. When the industry needs to reason collectively about a hard question, APRO is where that work happens.
Legal Summit Speakers & Facilitators
1:00-3:00 PM | Protecting the Transaction Legal Summit
Now in its third year, the Protecting the Transaction Legal Summit returns to RTO World as the industry’s premier gathering for legal and compliance professionals across the full spectrum of rent-to-own — traditional RTO dealers, virtual operators, and businesses leveraging the lease-purchase statute. This year’s summit takes a deliberate step forward, expanding beyond legal updates into the harder and more consequential conversation: what the industry owes itself in the form of best practices and self-regulation, and what it looks like to build those standards with intention rather than wait for them to be imposed from outside.
Attendees will hear from leading legal and compliance voices on recent developments across the regulatory landscape, but the summit is designed equally as a working forum — a space where owners, operators, inside and outside legal counsel, and compliance specialists can engage directly in shaping the norms and practices the industry needs to carry forward. The underlying conviction driving this year’s program is the same one that has animated the summit from the beginning: that an industry capable of governing itself well earns the credibility to defend itself effectively, and that the time to build that architecture is now.
Read Facilitator Bio
Charles Smitherman
APRO
Charles Smitherman, JD, PhD, CAE, became CEO of APRO in 2023, bringing years of legal and executive experience in the rent-to-own industry.
Prior to joining the association, he served as COO, General Counsel, and Vice President of PTS Financial Services, where he played an active role in the rent-to-own industry by representing his company through PTS’s club program offering with APRO member dealers. He is an attorney with two decades of experience across a wide variety of areas, including RTO, consumer financial services, antitrust, corporate law, mergers and acquisitions, litigation, franchise law, and privacy law. Following law school at the University of Georgia, he earned a Master of Legal Studies and PhD in Law from the University of Oxford in England.
A recognized thought leader in the industry, Charles is the co-author of The Rent-to-Own Revolution: A Definitive History of Advocacy and Consumer Access and the author of Reclaiming Authority: How Institutions Teach Truth in the Age of AI.
He is credentialed as a Certified Association Executive (CAE) with the American Society of Association Executives, a Certified Franchise Executive (CFE) with the International Franchise Association, and a Certified Information Privacy Professional (CIPP/US) and Certified Information Privacy Manager (CIPM) through the International Association of Privacy Professionals.
As APRO’s sixth CEO in its 45-year history, Charles brings a collaborative, member-focused approach to association leadership, emphasizing transparency, advocacy, and value creation. Outside of work, he is an active ultra runner and open water swimmer.
Read Speaker Bios
Nick Garrard
Wilkins Patterson
Nick Garrard is an attorney and partner at Wilkins Patterson in Jackson, Mississippi. He was born and raised in the Mississippi Delta and is known for his deep roots in the rent-to-own (RTO) industry. Nick has served as General Counsel for the National Barn and Storage Rental Association (NBSRA), the predecessor to NSRA, and continues to act as a Legal Advisor to NSRA. He is recognized for his work bridging lease-purchase law with shed rental operations. Nick and his wife are based in Jackson, Mississippi, where they raise two children
Justin Hosie
Hudson Cook LLP
Justin Hosie is a partner at Hudson Cook, and chair of their Small Dollar and Alternative Financial Services Practice Group. He counsels fintech, consumer credit, buy-now-pay-later, wage advance, and rent-to-own clients on compliance with consumer protection laws.
Justin frequently serves as a presenter at industry conferences, addressing consumer protections, the CFPB, innovation, and ethics. He also co-presents Hudson Cook’s monthly CFPB Bites of the Month webinar series with Eric Johnson. Hosie is recognized in The Best Lawyers in America©2024 for Financial Services Regulation Law, and is AV rated by Martindale Hubbell.
Robert D. Tilley
Rob represents consumer financial services companies in government investigations, enforcement actions, and consumer disputes. As a partner in our Washington, DC office, he regularly represents clients before the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), Federal Trade Commission (FTC), U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), and state attorneys general. He also has significant experience litigating cases in state and federal courts and representing clients in arbitration proceedings across the country.
Dailey Wilson
Dailey Wilson is a trusted advisor to financial services providers, specifically in the fields of federal and state regulatory compliance. As a partner in the Tennessee office, she assists lease-purchase providers and other financial institutions with:
- Drafting consumer-facing documentation, including applications, lease-purchase agreements, loan agreements, and servicing and collection notices.
- Developing internal policies and procedures addressing compliance with both state and federal consumer protection laws for a variety of industries.
- Conducting compliance audits and due diligence reviews for state and federal law adherence in the lease-purchase and alternative consumer financial services space.
Dailey also advises clients on compliance with other consumer privacy and protection issues, including data security laws, data breach laws, and laws regarding consumer reporting. She works closely with clients to develop comprehensive data security strategies, covering risk assessments, information security programs, written incident response plans, vendor management, and due diligence as well as assisting clients with responses to data breaches.
Her commitment to professional and community involvement includes serving on the Alumnae Council for Girls Preparatory School in Chattanooga, TN.
