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Bankruptcy Law Commons

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University of Georgia School of Law

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Consumer debt

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Full-Text Articles in Bankruptcy Law

Portraits Of Bankruptcy Filers, Pamela Foohey, Robert M. Lawless, Deborah Thorne Jan 2022

Portraits Of Bankruptcy Filers, Pamela Foohey, Robert M. Lawless, Deborah Thorne

Scholarly Works

One in ten adult Americans have turned to the consumer bankruptcy system for help. For the past almost forty years, the only systematic data collection about the people who file bankruptcy comes from the Consumer Bankruptcy Project (CBP), for which we serve as co-principal investigators. In this Article, we use CBP data from 2013 to 2019 to describe who is using the bankruptcy system, providing the first comprehensive overview of bankruptcy filers in thirty years. We use principal component analysis to leverage these data to identify distinct groups of people who file bankruptcy. This technique allows us to situate the …


Steering Loan Modifications Post-Pandemic, Pamela Foohey, Dalie Jimenez, Christopher K. Odinet Jan 2022

Steering Loan Modifications Post-Pandemic, Pamela Foohey, Dalie Jimenez, Christopher K. Odinet

Scholarly Works

As part of federal and state relief programs created during the COVID-19 pandemic, many American households received pauses on their largest debts, particularly on mortgages and student loans. Others may have come to agreements with their lenders, likewise pausing or altering payment on other debts, such as auto loans and credit cards. This relief allowed households to allocate their savings and income to necessary expenses, like groceries, utilities, and medicine. But forbearance does not equal forgiveness. At the end of the various relief periods and moratoria, people will have to resume paying all their debts, the amounts of which may …


Consumer Bankruptcy Should Be Increasingly Irrelevant--Why Isn't It?, Pamela Foohey Jan 2020

Consumer Bankruptcy Should Be Increasingly Irrelevant--Why Isn't It?, Pamela Foohey

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This symposium piece is a response to Professor Nathalie Martin's Bringing Relevance Back to Consumer Bankruptcy. This response overviews the place consumer bankruptcy presently occupies in the United States. In doing so, it details why consumer bankruptcy remains relevant in the face of a socio-economic structure and of laws that suggest that bankruptcy may not be a particularly useful place for struggling Americans to turn to for help. The response ends by calling for a bolder vision for consumer bankruptcy in light of the shifting place of the bankruptcy system in America’s increasingly thread-bare social safety net.


Consumers’ Declining Power In The Fintech Auto Loan Market, Pamela Foohey Jan 2020

Consumers’ Declining Power In The Fintech Auto Loan Market, Pamela Foohey

Scholarly Works

Automobiles have become part of America’s infrastructure. For most people, having access to a car is crucial to their livelihoods and they will take on significant amounts of debt to purchase vehicles. Auto debt is unlike any other consumer debt, both in its structure, which allows creditors to easily seize collateral, and in its lack of regulation. The unique and lucrative nature of auto debt has not gone unnoticed by lenders or by companies leveraging fintech to offer people new ways to purchase cars and car loans. This Article assesses the evolving marketplace for auto sales, leasing, and loans to …