Author Archives: Jeff Sovern

National Law Journal Article on What Happens to CFPB if Romney Wins

Here. An excerpt: Lawyers believe Cordray will remain at the helm of the agency until his appointment expires in December 2013, though some predict he'll step down a few months early to run for governor of Ohio. As a result, the CFPB — at least initially — is likely to hold course. That means more […]

Shay Lavie Paper on Class Actions

Shay Lavie of Harvard has written The Malleability of Collective Litigation, forthcoming in the Notre Dame Law Review. Here is the abstract: In Wal-Mart v. Dukes (131 S.Ct. 2541 [2011]), Wal-Mart avoided class action because employment decisions were made by local supervisors. However, it was Wal-Mart who chose to delegate discretion; by doing so, it […]

Paper on Whether the Treatment of Student Loans in Bankruptcy Should be Changed

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 […]

HufPo Report: Suit Charges Debt Collector Told Disabled Vet He Should Have Died

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 […]

Credit Counseling and Student Loans

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 […]

Simplified Food Labels

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 […]