Category Archives: Uncategorized

Supreme Court reads Sarbanes-Oxley whistleblower protection broadly

The question before the Court in Lawson v. FMR LLC was whether the whistleblower protection of Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 applies only to employees of public corporations or also to the employees of contractors with those corporations. Contractors' employees are included, ruled the Supreme Court today, in a 6-3 decision that did not split along […]

National Consumer Protection Week has started

March 2-8 is National Consumer Protection Week (NCPW). NCPW is a campaign of a group of non-profit organizations (including AARP and Consumers Union) and federal and state government entities (including the Federal Trade Commission and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau), aimed at helping consumer to “take advantage of their consumer rights and make better-informed decisions.” […]

Access to Justice Index

The National Center for Access to Justice has released the "Access to Justice Index," an online resource presenting data on the "performance of state-based justice systems in assuring access to justice." Going state by state, the index looks at four elements of state-based justice systems: • the number of civil legal aid attorneys serving the […]

Arizona Gov. Brewer vetoes bill permitting businesses to deny service to LGBT customers

Despite her history of backing measures on the leading edge of the conservative agenda (such as the controversial immigration law S.B. 1070, later invalidated in part by the Supreme Court), Arizona's Republican Governor Jan Brewer yesterday vetoed a bill that would have permitted discrimination against LGBT customers by business owners who cited religious reasons for […]

CFPB sues chain of for-profit colleges, accusing it of predatory lending

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau announced yesterday that it has sued ITT Educational Services, Inc., accusing the for-profit college chain of predatory student lending. We believe that ITT used high-pressure tactics to push many students into expensive private student loans that were likely to end in default. This is our first public enforcement action against […]

How the subprime mortgage crisis undermined the property recording system and what to do about it

Those are the topics considered in law teacher Joseph Singer's new article Foreclosure and the Failures of Formality, or Subprime Mortgage Conundrums and How to Fix Them. Start with the abstract: The subprime mortgage crisis was not only an economic disaster but posed challenges to traditional rules of property law. Banks helped create the crisis […]

How might the CFPB’s design affect its performance?

That's the topic of Why Who Does What Matters: Governmental Design, Agency Performance, the CFPB and PPACA by law teachers David Hyman and William Kovacic. Here's the abstract: How should the federal government be organized – and who (i.e., which departments, agencies, bureaus, and commissions) should do what? The issue is not new: President James […]

Will the proposed $10.10 per hour minimum wage provide a decent standard of living?

The Real News Network has produced Will a $10 Minimum Wage Get All Working Americans Out of Poverty?  As its title suggests, RNN's story addresses whether President Obama and the Democratic party's proposal to take the minimum wage to $10.10 per hour will provide a non-poverty-level wage. To watch the story, you can click on […]