Category Archives: Consumer Law Scholarship

Gould and Van Loo paper offers some reasons Congress underproduces consumer protection statutes

Jonathan S. Gould of Berkeley & Rory Van Loo of BU have written Legislating for the Future, 92 U. Chi. L. Rev. 375 (2025). The article is about legislation to prevent financial crises but much of it applies to consumer protection statutes in general. They say, for example: Members of Congress focus on their immediate […]

Pat McCoy paper on issues with the Restatement of Consumer Contracts

Patricia A. McCoy of Boston College has written Inflection Points in The Drafting of the Restatement on Consumer Contracts: Salience and Its ARC. Here’s the abstract: When the Reporters of the Restatement of the Law, Consumer Contracts (RCK or Restatement) undertook that project for the American Law Institute, they faced a bind.  Courts generally infer blanket […]

Horton study finds lawless arbitrators

David Horton of California, Davis has written Do Arbitrators Follow the Law? Evidence from Clause Construction, 126 Colum. L. Rev. Forum — (forthcoming 2025). Here’s the abstract: Courts and scholars have long disagreed about whether arbitrators follow the law. In the past three decades, the stakes in this debate have soared as the U.S. Supreme Court […]

A Companion Guide to the Restatement of Consumer Contracts

Oren Bar-Gill of Harvard, Omri Ben-Shahar of Chicago, and Florencia Marotta-Wurgler of NYU have written A Companion Guide to the Restatement of Consumer Contracts. Here’s the abstract: This short Essay, written by the Reporters of the recently published Restatement of Consumer Contracts, is intended as a companion to the Restatement. It highlights three areas, where the […]

Paper on Implications of CFPB Downsizing for Regulatory Integrity and Market Stability

David Krause of Marquette’s College of Business Administration has written Dismantling Financial Oversight: Implications of CFPB Downsizing for Regulatory Integrity and Market Stability. Here’s the abstract: This paper examines the long-term implications of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) downsizing under the second Trump administration. Originally created in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis […]

John Lewis blog post about enforcing the payday lending rule

Here at the Yale Journal of Regulation Notice and Comment blog. John Lewis is Deputy Legal Director at Governing for Impact. Excerpt: Much like the Trump Administration’s attempt to “dismantle and disable the agency entirely,” the administration’s latest effort to prevent CFPB from enforcing vital consumer protections is unlawful. Affected parties—those who stand to benefit from the […]

Politico reports Congress may “reform” the CFPB’s funding through a reconciliation bill

Here (behind paywall). Indeed, according to the article, “House Financial Services Chair French Hill said Monday that reforming the CFPB’s funding structure remains “the principal focus” of his committee’s efforts to attach legislation to a GOP reconciliation package.” The Senate would not normally be able to change the CFPB’s funding without getting votes from Democrats because […]

Empirical examination of consumer contracting

Tess Wilkinson‐Ryan, David A. Hoffman, and Emily Campbell, all of Penn, have written Contracts for Everyone. Herre’s the abstract: The architects of American contract law—judges, lawyers, regulators and academics—know a lot about what litigated deals look like, but almost nothing about the contracting of ordinary people. This Article offers a wide-ranging empirical account of how non-elites […]

Ayres & Klass paper on how judges can use the Restatement of Consumer Contracts

Ian Ayres of Yale and Gregory Klass of Georgetown have written How to Use the New Restatement of Consumer Contracts: A Guide for Judges. Here’s the abstract: In the absence of major legislation or regulatory action, U.S. consumers will continue to look to courts and the common law for protection when businesses engage in unfair and […]

Adam Feibelman paper argues that the CFPB should have authority over the Community Reinvestment Act

Adam Feibelman of Tulane University has written Relocating the Community Reinvestment Act. Here’s the abstract: The Community Reinvestment Act was enacted in 1977 to address the failure of financial institutions to provide credit and financial services in low-income communities, especially Black neighborhoods. The Act is part of a family of legal regimes, including the Home […]