by Jeff Sovern That's the title of my essay my colleague Gina Calabrese and I wrote here in Bloomberg Law. Excerpt: The ABA argues that consumers don’t need protection from unscrupulous lawyers because lawyers are already subject to state ethics rules largely written by the ABA itself. Experience tells us otherwise. When a law firm sued […]
Author Archives: Jeff Sovern
WaPo has the story here. The government is also considering other debt collection initiatives, as noted in the article.
Kenneth P. Brevoort, Jasper Clarkberg, Michelle Kambara, and Benjamin Litwin, all currently or formerly at the CFPB, have written The Geography of Credit Invisibility. Here's the abstract: This study builds on the Bureau’s earlier work and examines the relationship between geography and credit invisibility. The importance of geography in accessing credit has been long-standing concern for […]
Here, in The Hill. Excerpt: Senators voted 50-49, along party lines, to end debate on Kathy Kraninger’s nomination to be the next CFPB director, with no Democrats supporting her. Kraninger is likely to be confirmed next week after a contentious Senate floor debate over her selection.
The International Association of Consumer Law has put out a call for papers for its 17th Annual Conference to take place in Indianapolis, Indiana on June 13-15, 2019. The theme is “Innovation and the Transformation of Consumer Law.” The abstract (max. 500 words) submission deadline is: 15 December 2018. Submit to: IACL2019submissions@gmail.com. Quoting from the CFP: […]
by Jeff Sovern With the Democrats' capture of the House, Maxine ("Auntie Maxine") Waters is expected to chair the House Financial Service Committee in the new Congress. South Carolina's Patrick McHenry has tossed his hat in the ring to be the ranking member of the Committee, and has drawn support from others who were rumored […]
by Jeff Sovern The federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act provides consumers a variety of protections. Collectors, for example, are barred from making false statements and engaging in unfair practices, and are obliged to give consumers certain disclosures. But the American Bar Association wants to excuse lawyers "engaged in litigation activities" from complying with the […]
by Jeff Sovern Regular readers of the blog know that we often write about the ineffectiveness of disclosures, and plenty of others have the same complaint. But here's a bit of good news: a study by Michael Grubb, Paul Adams, Andrea Caflisch, Darragh Kelly, and Jeroen Nieboer, and Matthew Osborne, discussed at a recent FDIC Consumer […]
Ann M. Burkhart of Minnesota has written Fixing Foreclosure, 36 Yale Law & Policy Review (2018). Here is the abstract: Since the American Revolution, mortgage foreclosures have consisted of a public auction of the mortgaged property. Judges and state legislators at the time believed that an auction was the best way to obtain a fair price for the […]
Camilla E. Watson of Georgia has written Federal Financing of Higher Education at a Crossroads: The Evolution of the Student Loan Debt Crisis and the Reauthorization of the Higher Education Act of 1965. Here is the abstract: Currently, there are 44.2 million Americans holding student loan debt collectively totaling $1.5 trillion. This massive debt has a […]