Category Archives: Consumer Law Scholarship

Bales & Gerano Paper: Oddball Arbitration

Richard A. Bales and Mark B. Gerano, both of Northern Kentucky have written Oddball Arbitration, 30 Hofstra Labor & Employment Law Journal (2013). Here's the abstract: Congress passed the FAA in 1925 to resolve commercial disputes involving merchants. Since then, the Supreme Court has dramatically expanded the scope of the FAA and applied it in […]

Report on County Clerks and Qui Tam Suits Against MERS

Dustin A. Zacks of King, Nieves & Zacks PLLC has written Revenge of the Clerks: MERS Confronts County Clerk and Qui Tam Lawsuits, 32 Banking & Financial Services Policy Report No. 1 (2013).  Here's the abstract: Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, Inc. (MERS) has faced unceasing controversy from litigators and scholars for its role in foreclosures, […]

Marc Roark Paper on Payment Systems

Marc Lane Roark of Missouri has written Payment Systems, Consumer Tragedy, and Ineffective Remedies, forthcoming in 86 St. John's Law Review (2013).  Here's the abstract: Payment methods like the Starbucks Rewards Card, while imitating liquidity, are challenged by confidence-detracting barriers of too little consumer knowledge and a lack of appropriate remedies. Starbucks operates as a […]

Two Conceptions of Concepcion

Arpan Sura and Robert A. DeRise, both of Arnold & Porter, have written Conceptualizing Concepcion: The Continuing Viability of Arbitration Regulations.  Here's the abstract: Section 2 of the Federal Arbitration Act (“FAA”) provides that arbitration agreements “shall be valid, irrevocable, and enforceable, save upon such grounds as exist at law or in equity for the […]

Ginger Chouinard Paper on Lesser-Known Credit Reports

Ginger Chouinard of New Mexico has written The 'Other' Credit Report: What You Don't Know Can Hurt You.  Here's the abstract: Nearly 90% of financial institutions use ChexSystems or similar account screening reports in their account opening process, yet they are under no duty to disclose this to consumers until an account is denied due […]

Nancy Welsh Paper on Arbitration and Incentivizing Procedural Safeguards

Nancy Welsh of Penn State has written Mandatory Predispute Consumer Arbitration, Structural Bias, and Incentivizing Procedural Safeguards, 42 Southwestern University Law Review 187 (2012).  She presented the paper at the AALS annual conference.  Here's the abstract: Within the past several decades, there has been an explosion in the creation, institutionalization and use of “alternative” dispute […]

Ray Brescia Paper Calls for Strengthening the CRA

Raymond H. Brescia of Albany has written The Community Reinvestment Act: Guilty, but Not as Charged.  Here's the abstract: Since its passage in 1977, the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) has charged federal bank regulators with "encourag[ing]" certain financial institutions "to help meet the credit needs of the local communities in which they are chartered consistent […]

Jim Hawkins, et al. Paper on Title Lending

Vanderbilt Ph.D. student Kathryn Fritzdixon, Jim Hawkins of Houston, & Paige Marta Skiba of Vanderbilt have writtetn Dude, Where's My Car Title?: The Law, Behavior, and Economics of Title Lending Markets. Here's the abstract: Millions of credit-constrained borrowers turn to title loans to meet their liquidity needs. Legislatures and regulators have debated how to best […]

Debt Collection Study of Offer of Representation and Counseling

Dalie Jimenez of Connecticut, James Greiner of Harvard, Lois R. Lupica of Maine, & Rebecca L. Sandefur of the American Bar Foundationand Illinois have written Using a Randomized Control Trial to Accomplish Multiple Goals: An RCT Evaluating What Works for Individuals in Financial Distress, Investigating the Debt Collection System, Exploring Ways to Increase Access to […]

Porat & Strahilevitz Paper: Personalizing Default Rules and Disclosure with Big Data

Ariel Porat of Tel Aviv University and Chicago and Lior Strahilevitz of Chicago have written Personalizing Default Rules and Disclosure with Big Data.  Here's the abstract: This paper provides the first comprehensive account of personalized default rules and personalized disclosure in the law. Under a personalized approach to default rules, individuals are assigned default terms […]