Category Archives: Consumer Law Scholarship

Mortgage Crisis in a Nutshell Video

John E. Campbell of Denver has created a video on the mortgage crisis. Here's the abstract (yes, there's an abstract): Before becoming a law professor, much of my work was as a litigator and appellate attorney. I became increasingly passionate about the problems that exist in the mortgage industry. I also became increasingly aware that […]

Shauhin Talesh Study on How Dispute Resolution Structures Affect Implementation of Consumer Law

Shauhin A. Talesh of Irvine has written How Dispute Resolution System Design Matters: An Organizational Analysis of Dispute Resolution Structures and Consumer Lemon Laws, 46 Law & Society Review (2012).  Here's the abstract: This study demonstrates how the structure of dispute resolution shapes the extent to which managerial and business values influence the meaning and implementation of […]

Another Concepcion Paper, This Time From Harvard

David Korn and David Rosenberg of Harvard have written Concepcion's Pro-Defendant Biasing of the Arbitration Process: The Class Counsel Solution.  Here's the abstract: By mandating that numerous plaintiffs litigate their common question claims separately in individual arbitrations rather than jointly in class action arbitrations, the Supreme Court in AT&T Mobility LLC v. Concepcion created a […]

Calo’s Against Notice Skepticism

by Jeff Sovern I've moved on to the privacy chapter of our casebook, and in that regard I just finished reading M. Ryan Calo's (Calo is at the University of Washington and affilated with Stanford)  intriguing Against Notice Skepticism In Privacy (And Elsewhere), 87 Notre Dame Law Review 1027 (2012).  Before I add my two […]

Richard Frankel Paper on Arbitration Clauses

Richard Frankel of Drexel has written The Arbitration Clause as Super Contract.  Here's the abstract: It is widely acknowledged that the purpose of the Federal Arbitration Act was to place arbitration clauses on “equal footing” with other contracts. Nonetheless,federal and state courts have placed arbitration clauses on a pedestal by creating special interpretive rules for […]

Engel & Mccoy on Preemption After Dodd-Frank

Kathleen C. Engel of Suffolk Patricia A. McCoy of Connecticut have written Federal Preemption and Consumer Financial Protection: Past and Future, 3 Banking & Financial Services Policy Report 25 (2012).  Here is the abstract: Many states and cities filled the void by passing anti-predatory lending laws of their own. Lenders, worried about potential liability, quickly organized a […]

Disclosure vs. Regulation

by Jeff Sovern Last week I had a very interesting conversation with a Ph.D candidate from the University of Amsterdam, Frederik J. Zuiderveen Borgesius, who is researching privacy regulation and behavioral targeting. He asked me if I could refer him to a book that explores when disclosure is an appropriate response to consumer protection problems […]

Dee Pridgen Paper on the CFPB and Recent Consumer Protection Statutes

Dee Pridgen of Wyoming has written Sea Changes in Consumer Financial Protection: Stronger Agency and Stronger Laws.  I read this one before it was posted and found it particularly useful in pulling together some recent themes in consumer law and explaining how the Dodd-Frank Act's anti-predatory lending rules are based on behavioral economics, as opposed to […]

More From Robert Hockett on Using Eminent Domain to Solve the Underwater Mortgage Debt Problem

Robert C. Hockett of Cornell has written Paying Paul and Robbing No One: An Eminent Domain Solution for Underwater Mortgage Debt that Can Benefit Literally Everyone. Here's the abstract: This essay provides updated argumentation for and abbreviated specification of the municipal eminent domain plan for underwater mortgage loans that the author lays out in his […]

Mark Budnitz on Mobile Financial Services

Mark Elliott Budnitz of Georgia State has written Mobile Financial Services: The Need for a Comprehensive Consumer Protection Law, 27 Banking & Finance Law Review (2012).  Here's the abstract: The article first describes mobile financial services for consumers and the types of companies participating in the provision of those services. Anticipated consumer problems are explored, […]