Bankruptcy

Things That Have Piled Up

By Bob Lawless

Long time readers of Credit Slips may have noticed that my blogging has flagged the past few months. That is because my colleagues, Jennifer Robbennolt and Tom Ulen, and I have been working on a text entitled Empirical Methods in Law. It is intended to be a user-friendly guide to the topic, useful (we hope) as both a deskbook and a textbook. It should be out later this year, and I'll try to say more about it.

In the early part of this past week, I was at the annual meeting for the National Conference of Bankruptcy Judges (NCBJ). It was in Las Vegas, which is always fun, but for me I got to meet up with many of my former colleagues at UNLV. The NCBJ meeting is always great. The panels are a good mixture of day-to-day practicalities and the big picture. Plus, you often get to hear what is on the judges' minds. There were about 1800 attendees this year--so I understand--if you're a bankruptcy lawyer it's worth going if you never had a chance. Next year, it's in New Orleans.

Between our book and my trip--oh, and I had to do a faculty workshop on Thursday--a few things piled up.

First, I got an e-mail reminder about Consumer Credit, Debt and Bankruptcy, a book edited by Johanna Niemi Iain Ramsay, and Bill Whitford. It first came out in July. The book has chapters from many of the leading scholars thinking about bankruptcy and consumer debt from around the world, including many past Credit Slips guests such as Susan Block-Lieb, Ronald Mann, Jason Kilborn, and Jean Braucher. The book is from Hart Publishing. I had just had occasion to revisit several of the chapters and was reminded of the book's overall quality. It's a good collection of work and is a good entry way into the literature for anyone wanting to think about these issues from a global perspective.

Second, my colleague, Andy Morriss, sent me an e-mail about the seventy-degree weather he is currently enjoying in whatever exotic locale he currently has landed in. If you are in the U.S. Midwest right now, you'll know that it's been cold and rainy. Despite Andy's (largely successful) attempt to produce weather envy, I wanted to pass along another interesting factoid he sent to me from Credit Karma. Apparently, persons from different Internet domains enter vastly different credit scores on this web site. Personally, I think it says more about the domains than anything about credit scores, but I'll let our readers ponder that in the comments.

Have a great weekend.

Full post as published by Credit Slips on October 23, 2009 (boomark / email).