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The article discusses the financial challenges faced by U.S. households during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and the loan modifications which may be considered by consumer credit lenders. Topics explored include the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act passed by the U.S. Congress, the oversight of loan modifications by the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), and the status of the credit market during the pandemic.

For an ever-growing number of students aspiring to higher education, borrowing is essential. Yet the burdens of indebtedness disproportionally harm Black and Latinx students. Debt also undermines the meaning and effect of higher education access, enabling many who borrow to reach the middle class but still limiting possibilities relative to students who do not need to borrow or who borrow less--students who are more likely to enjoy relative privilege. This Article identifies ways in which student indebtedness works systematically to disadvantage those students who belong to groups historically subordinated on the basis of race, and thus provides more concrete historical and empirical grounding for reforms that would improve accessibility of higher education. The Article develops proposals for reform, including debt forgiveness and elimination of public institution tuition, to promote greater equity in access. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over forty-four million Americans owe more than $1.6 trillion in student loan debt. This debt is nearly impossible to discharge in bankruptcy. Attempting to do so may require costly and contentious litigation with the Department of Education. And because the Department typically fights every case, even initial success can be followed by years of appeals. As a result, few student loan borrowers attempt to discharge their student loan debt in bankruptcy. In this Article, we call on the Department of Education to develop a set of ten easily ascertainable and verifiable circumstances in which it will not contest a debtor’s attempt to discharge their student loan debt. Nearly every category of no-contest discharge we recommend represents a circumstance where the debtor would clearly suffer an undue hardship if forced to continue to attempt repayment. In those circumstances, the Department of Education should conserve taxpayer dollars by consenting to discharge. Specifically, we urge the Department of Education to allow a no-contest discharge when the debtor’s income is less than 150 percent of the federal poverty level and at least one of the following: (1) the debtor’s household income has been at or below the federal poverty level for the last four years; (2) the debtor receives disability benefits under the Social Security Act; (3) the debtor receives disability benefits because of military service; (4) the debtor’s income is derived solely from retirement benefits; (5) the debtor is a caregiver of an adult or child as defined in the Lifetime Respite Care Act; (6) the debtor is a family caregiver of an eligible veteran; (7) the debtor did not receive a degree from the institution, or the institution closed; (8) the debtor’s student loan balance is less than $5,000; (9) the debtor made at least three hundred monthly payments (twenty-five years’ worth) towards their student loans, regardless of whether those payments were made continuously; or (10) the debtor is over the age of sixty-seven. Our proposal will not solve every problem, but it would go a long way toward resolving many of the grosser inequities currently associated with student loans and their treatment in bankruptcy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Consumer debts in the United States can effectively live (and grow) forever: most statutes of limitations do not extinguish them; they can morph into relatives' obligations after the debtor's death; and they sometimes rise from the grave even after they have been paid. All the while, interest and fees accrue. There is one sure way to extinguish most debts, however, and that is by filing bankruptcy. This Article explores the practical, philosophical, and economic effects of the current system. It proposes a form of "automatic bankruptcy" for consumer debts: a federal discharge that, by operation of law, would extinguish debts (roughly) seven years after a default, or seven years after a judgment. The Article explores additional features of this proposal including ones designed to ensure it is self-executing, and others that mirror features of the Fair Credit Reporting Act and the discharge provisions of the Bankruptcy Code. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We will never have enough lawyers to serve the civil legal needs of all low- and moderate-income (LMl) individuals who must navigate civil legal problems. A significant part of the access-to-justice toolkit must include self-help materials. That much is not new; indeed, the legal aid community has been actively developing pro se guides and forms for decades. But the community has hamstrung its creations in two major ways: first, by focusing these materials almost exclusively on educating LMl individuals about formal law, and second, by considering the task complete once the materials have been made available to self-represented individuals. In particular, modern self-help materials fail to address many psychological and cognitive barriers that prevent LMl individuals from successfully deploying the substance of the materials. In this Article we make two contributions. First, we develop a theory of the obstacles LMl individuals face when attempting to deploy professional legal knowledge. Second, we apply learning from fields as varied as psychology, public health, education, artificial intelligence, and marketing to develop a framework for how courts, legal aid organizations, law school clinics, and others might reconceptualize the design and delivery of civil legal materials for unrepresented individuals. We illustrate our framework with examples of reimagined civil legal materials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article investigate whether the elimination of consumer bankruptcy protections for private student loans has lessened the cost of those loans in the U.S. Topics discussed include effects of Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act on private student loan market; use of datasets from Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and econometric techniques for evaluating its effect of students loan; and enactment of Truth In Lending Act for the same.

Despite the critical legal discourse that has taken place over the past thirty years in the United States regarding battered women who kill their assailing partner and the partial legislative reforms passed in individual states, no comprehensive and uniform legislative amendment has been proposed yet. Consequently, the American doctrine relating to battered women who act in selfdefense is inconsistent and incomplete. Such a legal structure precludes the provision of adequate and uniform legal justice for victims of domestic violence and leads to tragic legal consequences for battered women who defend themselves against their aggressors. This article seeks to translate the insights of the recent critical legal discourse on the issue of self-defense of battered women into a statutory amendment regarding the doctrine of self-defense in circumstances of domestic violence. The amendment proposed in this article is influenced by previous scholarly proposals that have not yet been the subject of detailed legislative drafting. The amendment is introduced into the legal framework of the American Law Institute's Model Penal Code ("MPC") because of the Code's enormous influence in shaping state criminal codes in the United States. The legislative proposal offered contains unique criminological features pertaining to the nature of the phenomenon of battered women, tailored to the doctrine of self-defense and its legal requirements. The proposed amendment is also consistent with the current doctrine, which precisely and distinctly regulates the conditions for using deadly protective force, but also contemplates the expansion of the category of deadly protective force as it is currently formulated in Section 3.04(2)(b) of the MPC. The proposal creates a legal presumption that circumstances of severe and prolonged violence in the family poses a real danger to the victim's body and life. In addition, it offers unique adjustments to the specific legal requirements (the duty to retreat and the duty to comply with the perpetrator's demands) that, according to the MPC, victims of domestic violence must meet prior to using deadly protective force. If only to ensure legislative harmony, the amendment also suggests criminalizing acts of sexual violence committed against intimate female partners, acts which unfortunately are explicitly permitted under the current MPC. Although the amendment to the definition of sexual crimes might appear irrelevant to the issue of domestic violence, the amendment is in fact crucial to creating a properly rounded and just legal doctrine of self-defense in cases of battered women. In order to promote legal clarity and prevent arbitrary interpretations of the law by fact finders, a clear and explicit statutory legal arrangement should be promoted. Accordingly, this article will articulate a focused and detailed legislative proposal to amend the MPC. The hope is that this amendment can serve as a prototype for future legislative state reforms and eventually help to establish a suitable criminal doctrine for victims of domestic violence who kill their assailants in self-defense. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

More than seventy-seven million Americans have a debt in collections. Many of these debts will be sold to debt buyers for pennies, or fractions of pennies, on the dollar. This article details the perilous path that debts travel as they move through the collection ecosystem. Using a unique dataset of eightyfour consumer debt purchase and sale agreements, it examines the manner in which debts are sold, oftentimes as simple data on a spreadsheet, devoid of any documentary evidence. It finds that in many contracts, sellers disclaim all warranties about the underlying debts sold or the information transferred. Sellers also sometimes refuse to stand by "the accuracy or completeness of any information provided." After discussing potential explanations for these issues, the article suggests that lax regulation and a collective action problem prevents the market from self-correcting. It concludes by recommending that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau declare the collection of consumer debts sold in this way as an unfair or deceptive act or practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the importance of randomized controlled trials (RCT) and empirical research methods in legal system for consumer debt collection. It mentions that randomized trials are effective in assessing the benefits of implementing legal or educational assistance programs. It also discusses the application of RCT in examining the interventions arising from legislators and legal services providers that are meant to assist consumers in financial distress.