Category Archives: Consumer Law Scholarship

My Latest Law Review Article: Free-Market Failure: The Wells Fargo Arbitration Clause Example

by Jeff Sovern It's for an arbitration symposium at Rutgers and is available for download here.  I would love to hear comments!  Here's the abstract: In September 2016, regulators charged Wells Fargo with opening millions of unauthorized accounts on behalf of its customers. When some of those customers filed class actions against Wells, the bank initially […]

Study Finds Many Consumers Can’t Tell That Native Ads are Paid Content

David A. Hyman of Georgetown, David J. Franklyn of the University of San Francisco, Calla E. Yee of Kilpatrick, Townsend & Stockton, and Mohammad Rahmati of Sharif University have written Going Native: Can Consumers Recognize Native Advertising? Does it Matter? 19 Yale J.L. & Tech. 77 (2017).  Here the abstract: Native advertising, which matches the […]

Cortez Article: Regulation by Database

Nathan Cortez of SMU has written Regulation by Database, University of Colorado Law Review, Vol. 89, 2017. Here is the abstract: The federal government currently publishes 195,245 searchable databases online, a number of which include information about private parties that is negative or unflattering in some way. Federal agencies increasingly publish adverse data not just […]

Study Examines Impact of Usury Limits on Auto Financing

Brian Melzer of Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management and Aaron Schroeder of the CFPB have written Loan Contracting in the Presence of Usury Limits: Evidence from Automobile Lending.  Here is the abstract: We study the effects of interest rate ceilings on the market for automobile loans. We find that loan contracting and the organization of […]

Gibson Article on Boilerplate-Free Transactions

James Gibson of Richmond has written Boilerplate's False Dichotomy, Georgetown Law Journal, Forthcoming.  Here is the abstract: The argument against enforcing boilerplate contracts (i.e., contracts that no one reads) seems clear. Indeed, if this were a court case, we would say that the jury is in; the evidence against boilerplate is overwhelming. Yet the judge […]

Article on Agencies Seeking Admissions of Guilt in Settlements

Verity Winship and Jennifer K. Robbennolt of Illinois have written Admissions of Guilt in Civil Enforcement, Minnesota Law Review, Vol. 101 (Forthcoming). Here is the abstract: Should agencies require admissions of guilt from the targets of civil enforcement? Administrative agencies rely heavily on settlement as a key enforcement tool. Admissions of guilt – or, more […]

Stephen Ware Article Takes On Current (Conservative) Arbitration Law

Stephen J. Ware of Kansas has written The Centrist Case Against Current (Conservative) Arbitration Law, 68 Florida Law Review  (2016). Here is the abstract: In The Politics of Arbitration Law and Centrist Proposals for Reform, I explained how issues surrounding consumer and other adhesive arbitration agreements became divisive along predictable political lines (progressives vs. conservatives) […]

Article Examines How Government Agencies Enforce UDAP Laws

Prentiss Cox of Minnesota, Amy Widman of Northern Illinois, and Mark Totten of Michigan State have written Strategies of Public UDAP Enforcement, Harvard Journal on Legislation, Forthcoming.  Here's the abstract: Laws protecting consumers from unfair and deceptive acts and practices – commonly called “UDAP” laws – have played a stunning role in recent years. As […]

Horton Article: Arbitration About Arbitration

David Horton of California, Davis has written Arbitration About Arbitration Stanford Law Review, Vol. 70, (2017 Forthcoming).  Here is the abstract: Recently, the U.S. Supreme Court’s interpretation of the Federal Arbitration Act (“FAA”) has nearly eliminated consumer and employment class actions, sparking vigorous debate. Yet another important development in federal arbitration law has received less […]

Book Published on the CFPB From Birth to 2015

The book is Meltdown: The Financial Crisis, Consumer Protection, and the Road Forward (Praeger 2017), by research economist Larry Kirsch and sociologist Greg Squires (George Washington University Sociology Department). Here's an abstract: Meltdown is the first book length account of the CFPB from its inception through 2015. With a foreword based on an interview with […]