Author Archives: Jeff Sovern

A Comment on Kaplinsky & Levin’s “CFPB Makes Consumer Arbitration a Numbers Game—and the Numbers Overwhelmingly Support Consumer Arbitration”

by Jeff Sovern The following is the body of an email I sent to the editor of the Consumer Financial Services Law Report (a very useful newsletter on developments in consumer finance): The August 9, 2015 issue of the Consumer Financial Services Law Report includes an advocacy piece by financial industry lawyers Alan S. Kaplinsky and […]

Jim Hawkins Asks if Bigger Companies Are Better for Low-Income Consumers

Jim Hawkins of Houston has written Are Bigger Companies Better for Low-Income Borrowers?: Evidence from Payday and Title Loan Advertisements, Forthcoming in the Journal of Law, Economics and Policy. Here is the abstract: Payday lending and title lending markets are dominated by a small number of large lenders.  Recent policy intervention into these markets in […]

Drobac: The Myth of ‘Legal’ Consent in a Consumer Culture

Jennifer Ann Drobac of Indiana's McKinney School has written The Myth of 'Legal' Consent in a Consumer Culture in FACETS OF CONSUMERISM IN A GLOBAL ECONOMY (Anand Pawar, ed., Twenty First Century Publications, 2015).  Here is the abstract: This Essay challenges the legal default of unquestioned human capacity for consent. It posits that legal capacity […]

Gauthier Guest Post: Spotify Modifies Not Just Privacy Policy, But Also Arbitration Clause: The Results Are Outrageous

Guest Post by Gregory Gauthier: Late last week, many media outlets drew attention to broadly-worded terms in Spotify’s new privacy policy.  Although Spotify’s CEO later explained the intent of the changes to the privacy policy, another change to Spotify’s terms has yet to be explained by Spotify or discussed by the media.  The change, which […]

A Pair of Arbitration Papers

Richard Frankel of Drexel has written Concepcion and Mis-Concepcion: Why Unconscionability Survives the Supreme Court's Arbitration Jurisprudence, 17 Journal of Dispute Resolution. Here is the abstract: States have long relied on the doctrines of unconscionability and public policy to protect individuals against unfair terms in mandatory arbitration provisions. The Supreme Court recently struck a blow […]

Paper Analyzes Testing of Consumer Disclosures

Talia B Gillis, a doctoral student at Harvard, has written Putting Disclosure to the Test: Toward Better Evidence-Based Policy. Here is the abstract: Financial disclosures no longer enjoy the immunity from criticism they once had. While disclosures remain the hallmark of numerous areas of regulation, there is increasing skepticism as to whether disclosures are understood […]