Author Archives: Jeff Sovern

Block-LIeb & Janger article proposes changes in unconscionability rules

Susan Block-Lieb of Fordham and Edward J. Janger of Brooklyn have written Fit for its Ordinary Purpose: Implied Warranties and Common Law Duties for Consumer Finance Contracts, 59 Houston Law Review 3 (2021). Here’s the abstract: The history of consumer goods and consumer credit markets presents an anomaly: market transactions for consumer goods and credit […]

Blasie on Plain Language Laws

Michael Blasie of Pennsylvania State University, Dickinson Law has written The Rise of Plain Language Laws, University of Miami Law Review, 2022 Forthcoming. Here is the abstract: When lawmakers enacted 778 plain language laws across the United States, no one noticed. Apart from a handful, these laws went untracked and unstudied. Without study, large questions remain […]

Chandrasekher study finds lack of diversity among arbitrators

Andrea Chandrasekher of California, Davis has written An Empirical Investigation of Diversity in U.S. Arbitration. Here is the abstract: For decades, the United States system of arbitration has been subject to nearly constant public criticism. Calling arbitration a rigged judicial system, consumer and employee rights groups have voiced opposition to the practice of “forced arbitration” whereby […]

Victoria Barnes on Anne Fleming’s Scholarship

Victoria Barnes of the Max Planck Institute for Legal History and Legal Theory has written Anne Fleming’s History of Law and Consumer Finance, 22  Enterprise & Society 316 (2021). Here's the abstract: This article has teased out Anne Flemings’s interests and the overarching themes in her research. It shows how these themes and interests influenced […]

An open letter to Rohit Chopra: Don’t forget arbitration

Dear Rohit: Congratulations on your confirmation to serve as Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau! You are an excellent choice for many reasons, not least because you bring to the CFPB helm the experience of having served as an FTC Commissioner as well as having been at the CFPB in its earliest days. Much […]

Harvard Law Review to publish Wilf-Townsend article: Assembly-Line Plaintiffs

Daniel Wilf-Townsend of Chicago has written Assembly-Line Plaintiffs, Forthcoming in the Harvard Law Review. Here is the abstract: Around the country, state courts are being flooded with the claims of massive repeat filers. These large corporate plaintiffs leverage economies of scale to bring tremendous quantities of low-value claims against largely unrepresented individual defendants. Using recently developed […]

Hawkins & Penner essay about advertising, racial steering, and lending

Jim Hawkins of Houston and Tiffany Penner have written Advertising Injustices: Marketing Race and Credit in America, 70 Emory Law Journal 1619 (2021). Here is the abstract: Access to affordable credit played a central role in the Civil Rights Movement. But today, racial and ethnic minorities oversubscribe to high-cost lending products like payday loans and underuse […]

Finance Professor McNulty paper on consumer protection settlements

James E. McNulty a finance professor at Florida Atlantic University has written Consumer Protection Settlements: Theory and Policy. Here's the abstract: Lawsuits have a deterrent effect, but this is mitigated if settlements are routine. Regulators and judges should consider that a firm contemplating predatory activity directed at financially unsophisticated individuals might have built an estimate of […]