Judges as Mediators

With rising interest in the topic of judges as mediators, I am recirculatating the article published last year on this topic. The article reviews prominent accountability measures for judges and how these systems may not operate effectively when judges serve as mediators, especially when lawyers and parties have strong disincentives to object as needed. Given the objective of maintaining the legitimacy of the court system to the public, the appearance of impropriety is a major basis of concern throughout judicial ethics, whether or not there is evidence of actual inpropriety. Again, here is the article. 

June 7 virtual event on Second Circuit's Purdue Pharma decision

The Commercial Law League of America is holding a virtual event next week, free of charge and open to all, on broader implications of the Second Circuit's Purdue Pharma decision. Register here. Date and time: June 7, 2023 at noon Eastern. The panel is Candice Kline, Ralph Brubaker, Karen Cordry, and me, with Eric Van Horn moderating. 

Again, here's the link to register. 

Debt-based driving restrictions: new resources

Professor Kate Elengold and UNC Law 2L Michael Leyendecker have just posted very useful reports for no charge on the Social Science Research Network.  In Professor Elengold's words, these reports "classify, catalog, and cite every state law restricting driving privilege based on debt owed to the state or pursuant to a state-controlled system." This includes criminal or civil fines and fees,child support, taxes, tolls, and more. The Twitter announcement of these resources indicates that they welcome additions and corrections, and that a related scholarly article from Professor Elengold will be available soon. 

Here is the driver's license suspension report. 

Here is the car registration suspension report.  

Sorting Bugs and Features of Mass Tort Bankruptcy

I have posted a short draft article about mass tort bankruptcy. If you would like to send me comments on the draft, that would be lovely, but please keep two caveats in mind. First, I must submit the revisions by February 9. Second, the article must not exceed 10,000 words. For every addition, some other thing must be subtracted. The required brevity means the article does not and cannot canvas the large volume of scholarship about the topic, let alone the mini-explosion in recent years. 

For the Credit Slips audience I would like to particularly highlight Part I of the article, which contextualizes debates about current mass tort bankruptcy by reviewing two sets of sources from the 1990s and early 2000s. The first is the 1997 final report of the National Bankruptcy Review Commission. The second is scholarship, including two Federal Judicial Center books published in 2000 and 2005, of Professor Elizabeth Gibson, whose expertise lies at the intersection of civil procedure, federal courts, and bankruptcy.  If you are working on or talking a lot about mass bankruptcy but have not reviewed these materials in a while (or ever), then I hope you will be incentivized to check those out for yourselves. 

New Resource on Uniform Commercial Code Reform for Digital Assets including Crytocurrency

Earlier this fall I linked to a variety of resources, including webinars, on amendments to the Uniform Commercial Code to account for various types of digital assets. The scope includes but is not limited to commercial transactions involving cryptocurrency.

To add to these resources, a version of the amendments that includes official comments is now available.  

Because there will not be a uniform effective date, and some states have gotten an early start by implementing prior drafts of the amendments (see prior post), these could swiftly become relevant to transactions and disputes, including those that land in bankruptcy court. 

New Book Alert: Delinquent

The University of California Press has published Delinquent: Inside America's Debt Machine by Elena Botella. 

Botella used to be "a Senior Business Manager at Capital One, where she ran the company’s Secured Card credit card and taught credit risk management. Her writing has appeared in The New Republic, Slate, American Banker, and The Nation."

Here's the description from the publisher between the dotted lines below: 

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A consumer credit industry insider-turned-outsider explains how banks lure Americans deep into debt, and how to break the cycle.

Delinquent takes readers on a journey from Capital One’s headquarters to street corners in Detroit, kitchen tables in Sacramento, and other places where debt affects people's everyday lives. Uncovering the true costs of consumer credit to American families in addition to the benefits, investigative journalist Elena Botella—formerly an industry insider who helped set credit policy at Capital One—reveals the underhanded and often predatory ways that banks induce American borrowers into debt they can’t pay back.

Combining Botella’s insights from the banking industry, quantitative data, and research findings as well as personal stories from interviews with indebted families around the country, Delinquent provides a relatable and humane entry into understanding debt. Botella exposes the ways that bank marketing, product design, and customer management strategies exploit our common weaknesses and fantasies in how we think about money, and she also demonstrates why competition between banks has failed to make life better for Americans in debt. Delinquent asks: How can we make credit available to those who need it, responsibly and without causing harm? Looking to the future, Botella presents a thorough and incisive plan for reckoning with and reforming the industry.

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Looking forward to reading this book! Also expecting to see more from the University of California Press of direct interest to Credit Slips readers in the years ahead.