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. The abstract observed that many respondents think that form contracts can't strip consumers of certain rights. That conclusion is obvious from the statistical data, but the written comments make the […]
Category Archives: Consumer Law Scholarship
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. But the abstract doesn't come close to capturing all the interesting findings. I hope to write more about some of them in the days to come. Here's something […]
by Jeff Sovern Elayne Greenberg, Paul Kirgis, Yuxiang Liu, and I have posted a draft of our article, "Whimsy Little Contracts" with Unexpected Consequences: An Empirical Analysis of Consumer Understanding of Arbitration Agreements, to the web. Here's the abstract: Arbitration clauses have become ubiquitous in consumer contracts. These arbitration clauses require consumers to waive the […]
Cheryl B. Preston of Brigham Young has written 'Please Note: You Have Waived Everything': Can Notice Redeem Online Contracts? Forthcoming in the American University Law Review. Here is the abstract: Online consumers are largely unaware of the extent to which their actions are governed by legal terms in the form of clickwraps or browsewraps. These contracts […]
Nathalie Martin of New Mexico has written Public Opinion and the Limits of State Law: The Case for a Federal Usury Cap, 34 North Illinois University Law Review (2014). Here's the abstract: This Article calls on Congress to set a federal interest rate cap of 36%, applicable to all loans. Part II of this Article briefly describes […]
Catherine Lee Wilson of Nebraska has written Making Prepaid Safe for Consumers: A Framework for Providing Deposit Insurance and Regulation E Protections, Forthcoming in the University of Pennsylvania Journal of Business Law. Here's the abstract: General purpose reloadable prepaid cards are part of a larger trend toward a cashless society. This market offers significant benefits […]
by Jeff Sovern The op-ed is here, at Forbes.com. Except that if you want to find out why everything Warren said is wrong, maybe the op-ed wouldn't be the place to look. Here's the lead: Why do people borrow? To hear law professor turned Senator Elizabeth Warren, it is because they are seduced by rapacious […]
Thomas A. Durkin and Gregory Elliehausen, both of the Fed, and Todd J. Zywicki of George Mason have written An Assessment of Behavioral Law and Economics Contentions and What We Know Empirically About Credit Card Use by Consumers. Here is an abstract: “Behavioral Law and Economics” (BLE) is a specialized component of the legal literature […]
Julia S. Cheney, Robert M. Hunt, Vyacheslav Mikhed, and Dubravka Ritter all of the Philadelphia Fed, have written Identity Theft as a Teachable Moment. Here is the abstract: This paper examines how instances of identity theft that are sufficiently severe to induce consumers to place an extended fraud alert in their credit reports affect their […]
Debra Pogrund Stark of John Marshall,Jessica M. Choplin of DePaul University, Mark A. LeBoeuf of DePaul and Andrew G. Pizor of the National Consumer Law Center have written Dodd-Frank 2.0: Creating Interactive Home-Loan Disclosures to Enable Shrewd Consumer Decision-Making, forthcoming in the Loyola Consumer Law Review. Here's the abstract: Congress and the Consumer Financial Protection […]