That's the name of the video linked here. Many of the readers of this blog work for justice in the civil courts. The video is about people who represent poor people in criminal cases.
Author Archives: Brian Wolfman
Yesterday, Scott Michelman posted on Public Citizen's opposition to proposed Tennessee lawyer advertising rules that would undermine consumer choice and competition in the legal services market. Citing similar concerns, the FTC has also opposed the proposed rules, as explained here. UPDATE: Read the FTC's press release and comments on the proposed rules.
That's the topic of this Market Watch article by Jan Wieczner. Here's an excerpt: Car insurance companies reward good behavior: Drivers with records free of 15-car pileups and tickets for doing 90 in a 55 pay cheaper premiums. Health insurers, on the other hand, offer people little incentive to stay out of harm’s (and doctor’s) […]
Georgetown law professor Adam Levitin has just written this 34-page article on the history, structure, powers, and politics of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Here is Levitin's introduction: In the wake of the financial crisis of 2008, Congress undertook a major overhaul of financial regulation, culminating in the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection […]
That's the name of this new article on the Federal Arbitration Act by Jarrod Wong of the McGeorge School of Law. Here's the abstract: The U.S. Supreme Court’s jurisprudence interpreting the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) is incoherent insofar as it relies on the concept of the parties’ “intent.” on the matter. To illustrate this distorting […]
That's the view of N.Y. Times columnist Eduardo Porter. Porter would raise them progressively, with smaller percentage increases on the working and middle classes. In this regard, remember that, despite contrary political rhetoric, income taxes are not high. They are at historical lows.
The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act prohibits debt collectors from attempting to collect debts — valid or not — in various unfair, deceptive, and ornery ways. The FTC's website explains in detail here. And Chris Morran, over at The Consumerist helpfully has boiled it down to the "23 things debt collectors are not allowed to […]
That's the name of this article by Ben Trachtenberg of the University of Missouri Law School. Here is the abstract: Law schools have misled prospective students for years about the value of legal education. In some cases, law school officials have engaged in outright deceit, knowingly spreading false information about their schools. More commonly, they […]
That's the title of a piece by Eric Goldman of Santa Clara Law School. Here's the abstract: In the past few years, publicized privacy violations have regularly spawned class action lawsuits in the United States, even when the company made a good faith mistake and no victim suffered any quantifiable harm. Privacy advocates often cheer […]
Mortgage servicers are the folks who collect your mortgage payments. Under new rules issued today by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, servicers will have to change their ways. Perhaps the most important change, as explained in this National Law Journal article, is "[a]t the first sign of trouble, when a homeowner has missed two consecutive […]