Here. An excerpt: Right now, the CFPB is finishing up the second phase of its study, which will hone in on consumers' understanding of arbitration clauses. At that point, it will decide whether it needs to act. If the bureau's findings are anything like those of the law school study, it must. Being stripped of our […]
Category Archives: Consumer Law Scholarship
Alan Schwartz of Yale has written Regulating for Rationality, Forthcoming in the Stanford Law Review. Here's the abstract: Traditional consumer protection law responds with various forms of disclosure to market imperfections that are the consequence of consumers being imperfectly informed or unsophisticated. This regulation assumes that consumers can rationally act on the information that it […]
Amy Schmitz of Colorado has written Females on the Fringe: Considering Gender in Payday Lending Policy, 89 Chicago-Kent Law Review (2014). Here's the abstract: Payday lending may provide a much-needed safety net for some consumers in need of quick cash for emergencies. However, data suggest that most payday loan borrowers become repeat users caught in a […]
by Jeff Sovern My coauthor, Paul Kirgis, has posted an excellent response to Alan S. Kaplinsky and Mark J. Levin's comments on the CFPB Monitor on our arbitration study. His response also has the virtue of being briefer than mine. While Paul's post is worth reading in full, here is my favorite part: Citizens cannot […]
by Jeff Sovern Alan S. Kaplinsky and Mark J. Levin, in their comments at the CFPB Monitor, wrote about the contract we showed the survey respondents: "The hypothetical card agreement used in the St. John’s study did not even contain an opt-out provision, although a substantial number of arbitration clauses in use today contain such […]
by Jeff Sovern I am pleased to report that Ballard Spahr’s Alan Kaplinsky and Mark Levin have commented on our arbitration study at their very informative and useful blog, CFPB Monitor (We’re still in the stage of soliciting comments and hoping to receive useful feedback which we can use to improve the draft, so if […]
by Jeff Sovern Some readers of our blog will no doubt be familiar with Nobel prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman from his popular books, What Do You Care What Other People Think? or Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! Others will remember him from his service on the panel that investigated the Challenger disaster. His relevance to […]
by Jeff Sovern As to the eight questions that had right or wrong answers: Only two respondents answered all eight questions correctly out of 663 who answered all eight questions. 117 did not answer any of the questions correctly. That’s more than answered at least half the questions right. If this had been a test […]
by Jeff Sovern Last week I posted the abstract for our study, 'Whimsy Little Contracts' with Unexpected Consequences: An Empirical Analysis of Consumer Understanding of Arbitration Agreements. I want to discuss today some of what we learned about respondent awareness of arbitration clauses in the contracts they have entered into. As the abstract noted, we asked […]