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The Real Student-Loan Scandal: Undue Hardship Discharge Litigation, Rafael I. Pardo, Michelle R. Lacey

Scholarship@WashULaw

For a debtor to obtain a discharge of educational debt in bankruptcy, an adversary proceeding between the debtor and the creditor must be initiated, and the debtor must establish that repayment of the debt would impose an undue hardship. This empirical study documents and analyzes trial-level outcomes of such proceedings. An original data set has been compiled of all terminated undue hardship discharge proceedings in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Western District of Washington that were commenced during the five-year period beginning on January 1, 2002 and ending on December 31, 2006. The study seeks to provide an account …