Caleb N. Griffin of Arkansas has written Contracting as a Class, 48 BYU Law Review (2023). Here’s the abstract: Contract law is stuck in a loop of path dependency and stale precedent. Its metaphors, like “the meeting of the minds,” are today laughably implausible. Its values, like “consent,” have been stripped of any real meaning. No one […]
Author Archives: Jeff Sovern
Here. According to Bloomberg,”Holyoak is currently solicitor general with the Utah Attorney General’s Office; Ferguson, a former aide to Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, is Virginia’s solicitor general.” The FTC is currently operating with only three of its five commissioners, all Democrats. It is not permitted to have more than three commissioners from the same […]
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Consumer Law Scholarship, Federal Trade Commission, U.S. Supreme Court, Unfair & Deceptive Acts & Practices (UDAP), including Discrimination
If the Chamber of Commerce’s claim that discrimination isn’t unfair is correct, why does Student for Fair Admissions have “fair” in its name?
I am working on an article about the CFPB’s determination that discrimination is unfair, a claim that the Chamber of Commerce and banking trade groups are challenging in litigation. Consequently, I am collecting examples in which people used the word “fair” to mean “without discrimination,” or conversely, “unfair” to convey discriminatory conduct. A prominent example […]
Alan Kaplinsky of Ballard Spahr has asked me to mention that the authors of papers that are selected for the Berkeley Consumer Law Scholars Conference that I posted about yesterday will also be considered to be guests on Ballard Spahr’s weekly podcast program, Consumer Finance Monitor, where Alan would interview them about their papers. Consumer […]
We received the following announcement: Save the Date: CLSC 2024 We are pleased to announce the sixth annual Consumer Law Scholars Conference (CLSC), which will be held February 29-March 1, 2024, at Berkeley Law. Save the date! The purpose of the CLSC is to support in-progress scholarship, foster a community of consumer law scholars, and build connections […]
Rory Van Loo of BU has written The Public Stakes of Consumer Law: The Environment, the Economy, Health, Disinformation, and Beyond, 107 Minn. L. Rev. 2039 (2023). Here’s the abstract: Consumer law has a conflicted and narrow identity. It is most immediately a form of business law, governing market transactions between people and companies. Accordingly, […]
Farshad Ghodoosi of California State, Northridge, David Nazarian College of Business & Economics, Department of Business Law and Monica M. Sharif of California State, Los Angeles have written Arbitration Effect, 60 Am. Bus. L.J. 235 (2023) (behind paywall but also available on Westlaw). Here’s the abstract: Arbitration is changing the United States justice system. Critics argue […]
Yesterday CFPB Director, Rohit Chopra, appeared before the House Financial Services Committee to answer questions from committee members, as he does at least twice a year. I haven’t watched the recording yet but according to reports in Law360 and the American Banker, some Republican committee members accused Chopra or the CFPB of being an appendage […]
We’ve received the following call for papers. Because recent standing cases like TransUnion and Spokeo have arisen in the context of consumer law and have had such an impact on consumer law, it may be that some readers of the blog have things to contribute. Call for Papers: Join us on September 22 at the […]
That’s essentially what Brad Karp is arguing in a June 1 essay in the American Banker, The CFPB’s late-fee proposal would harm the consumers it seeks to help (behind paywall but available on Lexis). Karp claims costs would go up for “the large majority of credit card customers” because delinquencies would meaningfully rise. As the […]