Daniel A. Austin of Northeastern has written The Indentured Generation: Bankruptcy and Student Loan Debt, 53 Santa Clara Law Review (forthcoming) Here's the abstract: A generation of Americans has borrowed heavily for their education, and hundreds of thousands of them are deeply in debt. Some 37 million Americans owe a total of approximately $1 trillion […]
Author Archives: Jeff Sovern
Here. An excerpt from what the collector supposedly said: "F— you! Pay us your money! You can't afford an attorney. You owe us. I hope your wife divorces your a–. If you would have served our country better you would not be a disabled veteran living off social security while the rest of us honest […]
by Jeff Sovern I've been studying up on student loans because we intend to include some materials on them in the next edition of our casebook. One thing I've learned is that the federal Higher Education Act and its implementing regulations require students obtaining federal student loans to have counseling before they take the loans. See 34 […]
by Jeff Sovern Mark Bittman has an interesting column in today’s Times, My Dream Food Label, describing how his ideal food label would use traffic lights–green, yellow, or red– to signal qualities such as the healthfulness of the food. Though Bittman doesn’t mention the health department restaurant grading system, which uses letter grades, it’s a […]
Oren Bar-Gill has written Seduction by Contract: Law, Economics and Psychology in Consumer Markets (Oxford University Press 2012). The Introduction is available here. Here's the abstract: Consumers routinely enter into contracts with providers of goods and services. These contracts are designed by sophisticated sellers to exploit the psychological biases of consumers. They provide short-term benefits, while imposing […]
Chunlin Leonhard of Loyola University New Orleans has written The Subprime Mortgage Crisis and Economic Checks and Balances, Banking & Financial Services Policy Report, June 2012, at 15. Here's the abstract: This article examines contract law’s role in the subprime mortgage crisis, specifically in the way that the laissez faire paradigm of traditional contract law […]
You can read a New York Law Journal report here. Wright is a professor at George Mason. The article highlights his devotion to Chicago-school economics and reports that he rejects the use of behavioral economics in antitrust. The article also opines that if Governor Romney wins the presidency, Wright would be a potential FTC Chairman. […]
by Jeff Sovern Yesterday I posted a special report on voting on consumer protection issues. I have been asked to remove the post to avoid the appearance of intervening in a political campaign. Accordingly, I have removed the post and do not plan to post the follow-up posts I had promised until after the election.