by Jeff Sovern
Here. The New Media Advocacy Project (N-Map) and Fordham Law School’s Feerick Center for Social Justice in conjunction with MFY Legal Services, Inc., and Pro Bono Net, along with other organizations, have created a series of short, animated videos to help consumers being sued in debt collection cases. I watched a couple of them and they are quite well done. Consumers go to the web site and answer a series of questions (called a survey on the web site) about whether they have heard from a debt collector, are being sued, have had a judgment entered against them, etc. On the basis of their answers, the web site then identifies which videos to show them. It is easy to imagine that consumers who don't know what to do when they are being sued by debt collectors will find these useful. It will be interesting to see the extent to which consumers use them. While the videos are directed to New York consumers, they would probably be valuable to non-New York consumers and in any event seem worth emulating elsewhere. (HT: Carolyn E. Coffey)