Law Commons^™

Why Is A Debt Collector Texting Me? The Modernization Of Debt Collection Practices, Emily Schmidt

University of Cincinnati Law Review

No abstract provided.

Bankruptcy & The Underwater Home: A Case For Real Property Redemption, David Sheinfeld

Michigan Business & Entrepreneurial Law Review

Chapter 7 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code exists to satisfy the claims of creditors and preserve an economic “fresh start” for the debtor after bankruptcy. In exchange for surrendering her property to the trustee to have it monetized (i.e., sold), the debtor receives a discharge of her debts and an injunction against future creditor in personam actions to recover them. However, the in personam injunction is insufficient to protect consumer debtors who are in default on mortgages encumbering underwater homes because the creditor’s in rem rights remain; after the conclusion of the case, the creditor can continue foreclosure proceedings, which …

The Pro Bono Collaborative Project Spotlight: Can You Help? December 2020, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Pro Bono Collaborative Staff Publications

No abstract provided.

Succession Issues For Uzbekistan In Relation To Treaties Of The Predecessor State, R. T. Xakimov

International Relations: Politics, Economics, Law

Аuthor analysis and gives new comprehension of contemporary problems of states succession in international law, elaboration of recommendations to improve legislation in force both on international and national levels etc. In legal sciences of the Republic of Uzbekistan it was the first attempt undertaken to explore the contemporary trends in theory and practices regarding the settlement of modern issues of the succession of states and its application in international law. The example of Uzbekistan was also analyzed.

Targeting Poverty In The Courts: Improving The Measurement Of Ability To Pay Fines, Meghan M. O'Neil, J.J. Prescott

Articles

Ability-to-pay determinations are essential when governments use money-based alternative sanctions, like fines, to enforce laws. One longstanding difficulty in the U.S. has been the extreme lack of guidance on how courts are to determine a litigant’s ability to pay. The result has been a seat-of-the-pants approach that is inefficient and inaccurate, and, as a consequence, very socially costly. Fortunately, online platform technology presents a promising avenue for reform. In particular, platform technology offers the potential to increase litigant access, reduce costs, and ensure consistent and fair treatment—all of which should lead to more accurate sanctions. We use interviews, surveys, and …

Asset Partitioning And Financial Innovation, Christopher Bruner

Scholarly Works

Review of the article by Ofer Eldar and Andrew Verstein titled “The Enduring Distinction between Business Entities and Security Interests”, 92 Southern California Law Review, no. 2 (2019).

A Reflection On The Ethics Of Movement Lawyering, Susan Carle, Scott L. Cummings

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

This essay takes a new look at legal ethics issues salient to "movement lawyers" who maintain a sustained commitment to social movement goals and collaborate with social movement organizations over time to achieve them. The essay provides a historical overview of movement lawyering, tracing its development to current practice in which movement lawyers work in collaboration with mobilized social movement groups, though not always in traditional lawyer-client relationships. As this analysis reveals, contemporary movements employ a sophisticated array of strategies, which may pull lawyers away from traditional representation paradigms. We argue that the legal ethics literature on movement lawyering must …

Compromising Student Loans, W. Edward Afield

South Carolina Law Review

No abstract provided.

Should We Defuse The Tax Bomb Facing Lawyers Who Are Enrolled In Income-Based Student Loan Repayment Plans, Gregory Crespi

South Carolina Law Review

No abstract provided.

California Bank & Trust V. Lawlor: A More Certain Future For California's Sham Guarantee Defense, Brett D. Young

Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Challenges Of The New Defalcation Standard, Jonathon S. Byington

Faculty Law Review Articles

The crux of bankruptcy law is giving debtors a fresh start by discharging their debts. Yet society has recognized that some debts should not be discharged because they either have a high level of societal importance or derive from a debtor’s culpable conduct. One of these exceptions from discharge is for defalcation while acting in a fiduciary capacity. The legal meaning of defalcation has been unclear for 172 years, ranging from a breach of trust by one who has charge of money to the misappropriation of money in one’s keeping. A three-way federal circuit split developed on whether a state …

Can America Govern Itself?: Deficits, Debt, And Delay, Ron Haskins

Brookings Scholar Lecture Series

America has now been in the throes of a deficit and debt crisis for nearly a decade. Over the last three years, the federal government has tied itself in knots trying to reach a long-term solution. Any effective solution will involve tax increases and entitlement cuts. But both parties have been unwilling to openly bargain about either the tax increases or spending cuts they are willing to consider as part of a grand bargain. Why are both parties being so intransigent? What are the prospects for a grand bargain and what might it look like? What are the consequences if …

A Capital Market, Corporate Law Approach To Creditor Conduct, Mark J. Roe, Frederico Cenzi Venezze

Michigan Law Review

The problem of creditor conduct in a distressed firm—-for which policymakers ought to have the distressed firm’s economically sensible repositioning as a central goal—-has vexed courts for decades. Because courts have not come to coherent, stable doctrine to regulate creditor behavior and because they do not focus on building doctrinal structures that would facilitate the sensible repositioning of the distressed firm, social costs arise and those costs may be substantial. One can easily see why developing a good rule here has been hard to achieve: A rule that facilitates creditor intervention in the debtor’s operations beyond the creditor’s ordinary collection …

Municipalities In Distress: A Preventive View, Tamar Frankel

Faculty Scholarship

The recent rising failure of municipalities has not produced the avalanche that some expected.¹ Yet concerns have been raised that the future will spawn more failures.² New York City and other municipalities face soaring pension, Medicaid, and retiree health care costs.³ New York City’s neighboring counties face similar challenges; Yonkers, Suffolk, and Nassau Counties each face their own set of fiscal problems.⁴

Municipalities that have failed, or are likely to fail, have raised a number of legal issues implicated by their inability to pay their debts. Some questions seem new. For example, are employees’ pension benefits …

Mezzanine Finance And Preferred Equity Investment In Commercial Real Estate: Security, Collateral & Control, Jon S. Robins, David E. Wallace, Mark Franke

Michigan Business & Entrepreneurial Law Review

This article will review both the genesis and the rise in popularity of preferred equity and mezzanine debt, examine their legal and structural differences, and provide some exposition as to how these financing techniques work from security, collateral and control standpoints. We do not undertake in this article to address the differences in tax and accounting treatment between mezzanine loans and preferred equity investments both for either the mezzanine lender or preferred equity investor on the one hand, or for the mezzanine borrower or the common equity investor, on the other hand. In deciding upon which structure to use, transaction …

Race, Educational Loans & Bankruptcy, Abbye Atkinson

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

This Article reports new data from the 2007 Consumer Bankruptcy Project revealing that college graduates and specifically White graduates are less likely to file for bankruptcy than their counterparts without a college degree. Although these observations suggest that a college degree helps graduates to weather the setbacks that sometimes lead to financial hardship as measured by bankruptcy, they also indicate that a college degree may not help everyone equally. African American college graduates are equally likely to file for bankruptcy as African Americans without a college degree. Thus, a college education may not confer the same protective benefit against financial …

Teaching International Law: Lessons From Clinical Education: Introductory Remarks, Richard J. Wilson

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

No abstract provided.

Where There's A "Will," There Should Be A Way: Why In Re Salvino Unjustifiably Restricts The Application Of § 523(A)(6) To Exclude Willful And Malicious Breaches Of Contract, Michael D. Martinez

Northern Illinois University Law Review

In accordance with the Bankruptcy Code's policy of limiting the privilege of discharge to "honest but unfortunate" debtors, the Code provides that certain types of debts shall be excepted from discharge as a matter of law. Of the twenty-one exceptions to discharge, the exception for "willful and malicious" injuries contained in section 523(a)(6) of the Code has given rise to a split of authority in the United States Circuit Courts of Appeals regarding whether tortious conduct is an essential element of a willful and malicious injury, as defined in section 523(a)(6). This note analyzes the decision in Wish Acquisition v. …

Deleveraging Microfinance: Principles For Managing Voluntary Debt Workouts Of Microfinance Institutions, Deborah Burand

Articles

This paper focuses on the challenges of responding to a deleveraging of the microfinance sector and offers guidelines for stakeholders in microfinance-regulators, policymakers, investors (debt and equity), donors, and microfinance providers-for how to address these challenges in the context of a microfinance institution debt workout so as to minimize undue disruption and damage to the microfinance sector as a whole.

Partially Odious Debts?, Omri Ben-Shahar, Mitu Gulati

Articles

The despotic ruler of a poor nation borrows extensively from foreign creditors. He spends some of those funds on building statues of himself, others on buying arms for his brutal secret police, and he places the remainder in his personal bank accounts in Switzerland. The longer the despot stays in power, the poorer the nation becomes. Although the secret police are able to keep prodemocracy protests subdued by force for many years, eventually there is a popular revolt. The despot flees the scene with a few billion dollars of his illgotten gains. The populist regime that replaces the despot now …

Pari Passu And A Distressed Sovereign's Rational Choices, William W. Bratton

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Part I describes the disruptive role the pari passu clause plays in sovereign debt compositions, stating the case favoring the narrow reading. Part II reconsiders the economic incentives in play at the time lenders close loans to sovereigns, stating a case for the broad reading. Part III works the competing readings through the legal framework of bond contract interpretation. The exercise shows that the matter comes down to a choice between an ex ante reading, conducted as of the time the contract is executed and delivered, and an ex post reading, conducted as of the later time of distress. The …

The Soft-Landing Fallacy And Consumer Debtors, Barry E. Adler

Fordham Journal of Corporate & Financial Law

No abstract provided.

The Two-Tiered Consumer Financial Services Marketplace: The Fringe Banking System And Its Challenge To Current Thinking About The Role Of Usury Laws In Today's Society, Lynn Drysdale, Kathleen E. Keest

South Carolina Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Virtual Clerk's Office: A Proposed Model Judgement Lien Act For The Computer Age, Charles Shafer

All Faculty Scholarship

This article addresses one aspect of the law regarding the satisfaction of judgments: when a creditor is determined to have a lien on property of the debtor. The unnecessary cumbersomeness of the present system, which limits the ability of creditors to promptly obtain a legally cognizable interest in specific property, hampers creditors in preventing the debtor's use, sale, or hypothecation of property that could be used to satisfy their debts. This is particularly true of intangible property and property where federal law or the law of sister states controls transfers. Not only do judgment creditors face the risk that the …

The Feasibility Of Debt-Equity Swaps In Russia, Thomas M. Reiter

Michigan Journal of International Law

This Note examines the origins, development, and mechanics of debt-equity swap programs in Latin America before discussing the various goals and policy considerations involved in formulating debt-equity swap programs. Next, the Note describes Russia's debt situation and sketches the outlines of a debt-equity swap program that will reduce Russia's foreign debt while stimulating foreign direct investment.

South Carolina's New Ucc Article Eight: Towards A Uniform Securities System, Martin C. Mcwilliams Jr., Lee Ann Anderson

South Carolina Law Review

No abstract provided.

Environmental Reforms In Post-Communist Central Europe: From High Hopes To Hard Reality, David Hunter, Margaret Bowman

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

No abstract provided.

Wills, Trusts, And Administration Of Estates Year's Support: Change Determination Of Year's Support, Mary Mccall Cash

Georgia State University Law Review

The Act clarifies what sources of support the court may consider available to an applicant for year's support, as well as clarifying who has the burden of proof in showing the amount of support necessary. The Act also removes the former requirement that all debts of the estate be paid before an applicant can receive year's support for subsequent years.

Debts, Job Choices, And Financial Burden: Educational Debts At Nine American Law Schools, David L. Chambers

Books

American law students are borrowing large sums of money. For graduates at many schools, cumulative debts of $35,000 from college and law school have become the norm and debts of $40,000, $50,000 and even more are common. The sums students are borrowing are much larger today than they were ten years ago, even after adjusting for increases in the cost of living. They have risen at a vastly faster pace than the initial salaries at small law firms and government agencies. They have even risen at a faster pace than the initial salaries in many large firms. The new pattern …

Controlling Legislative Shortsightedness: The Effectiveness Of Constitutional Debt Limitations, Stewart E. Sterk, Elizabeth S. Goldman

Faculty Articles

In this article, Professor Sterk and Ms. Goldman examine the efficacy of constitutional debt limitations as a method of controlling the incurrence of public debt. In examining the historical development of such limitations, the authors conclude that they are responses to perceived deficiencies in the legislative process rather than reactions to specific instances of legislative abuse. The authors determine, however, that courts have transformed absolute constraints on legislative power to incur debt into more flexible limitations that leave the judiciary with a substantial role in determining the fate of proposed borrowing schemes. Moreover, the authors found that few states revised …