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Consumer Law

CL&P Blog

The contributors to this blog are a diverse group of lawyers and law professors who practice, teach, or write about consumer law and policy. Although the blog is hosted by Public Citizen's Consumer Justice Project, the views expressed here are solely those of the individual contributors and do not necessarily reflect those of the institutions with which they are affiliated.

Post Frequency: 15.1/day

Last Entry: April 01, 2011 at 11:13:04

Are Human Genes Patentable?

Posted on November 02, 2010
The U.S. Department of Justice says that unmodified human genes, even if isolated genomic DNA, are not patentable because they are not "human-made inventions." Some in the biotech industry strongly disagree. Read this New York Times article on the disagreement...

HuffPo: Wells Fargo Repossesses Paid-Off Car

Posted on November 02, 2010
Those stories about banks foreclosing on homes for which the mortgage was paid off? Well, it doesn't happen only with homes, as HuffPo reports here.

Does The Minimum Wage Help Low-Wage Workers or Put Them Out of Work?

Posted on November 01, 2010
Political liberals like minimum wage laws and increases in the minimum wage because they claim that they help low-wage workers. Conservatives say that they are job killers. (Sometimes they note that a minimum wage law is irrelevant if the market...

Times Article: Robo-Signing Nothing New in Debt Collection

Posted on November 01, 2010
Here. A memorable quote: Analysts say that affidavit-signers at debt-buying companies appear to have little choice but to take at face value the few facts typically provided to them ? often little more than basic account information on a computer...

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Non-Proprietary Innovation

Posted on October 31, 2010
Steven Johnson recently published a book called ?Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation.? He's also authored this opinion piece published in yesterday's New York Times on the power of non-proprietary innovation. Here's an excerpt: In my...

State and Local Mortgage Foreclosure Mediation Programs

Posted on October 30, 2010
The National Consumer Law Center has this comprehensive webpage concerning state and local foreclosure mediation programs aimed at mitigating the devastation of foreclosure and helping homeowners keep their homes. As NCLC explains: In response to the national foreclosure crisis, state...

David Adam Friedman Article on Advertising

Posted on October 30, 2010
David Adam Friedman of Willamette has written Debiasing Advertising: Balancing Risk, Hope and Social Welfare, 19 Journal of Law & Policy (2011) (forthcoming). Here's the abstract: This article explores the nuances of ?debiasing through law,? a regulatory approach proposed by...

HAMP Modifications Down Again, BofA Worse than Others

Posted on October 29, 2010
Treasury reports that September HAMP activity continued the depressing trend: there were fewer than 30,000 new permanent mortgage modifications and 36,000 temporary mods canceled. Huge variations among banks and servicers continue as well. Bank of America lags in pretty much...

Rosetta Stone Files Its Appellate Brief v. Google -- and 2/3 of the Facts Are Secret

Posted on October 29, 2010
by Paul Alan Levy Rosetta Stone has just filed the opening brief in its appeal from a trial court decision granting summary judgment against its claim that Google violates the trademark laws when it sells advertising space to companies who...

A Different Approach to Foreclosures: When the Debt Survives Foreclosure and is Not Dischargeable

Posted on October 28, 2010
That's how it works in Spain, as this Times article points out. The result: Not only are Spanish mortgage holders personally liable for the full amount of the loan, but throw in penalty interest charges and tens of thousands of...

A timely reminder to blog and message board hosts -- be sure to register with the Copyright Office

Posted on October 28, 2010
by Paul Alan Levy David Kravets at Wired has published a story about one of the aspects of the recent spate of lawsuits filed by copyright troll Righthaven over the posting of snippets from articles in the Las Vegas Review-Journal....

New America white paper on the CFPB: "Tools, Transitions, and Choices"

Posted on October 28, 2010
The New America Foundation has put out a handy white paper by Tim Fernholz that gives a very clear overview of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's authorities under the Dodd-Frank Act and its choices and opportunities over the near term....

CFPB Starts Staffing Up

Posted on October 27, 2010
by Jeff Sovern Today's Times has an interesting article, Adviser to Consumer Agency Had Role in Lending, about CFPB hiring (or perhaps, more accurately, Treasury hiring for what will become the CFPB). Though the article is mostly about senior adviser...

Three thoughts on the foreclosure documentation scandal

Posted on October 27, 2010
by Christopher Peterson On monday the American Banker ran a well written story by Jeff Horwitz on the document problems slowing down foreclosures. It focuses on whether document custodians actually have the possession of key documents, including especially promissory notes...

GDS Publishing Provides a Timely Reminder of Why We Needed the Libel Tourism Law

Posted on October 26, 2010
by Paul Alan Levy GDS Publishing, a New York company that puts on seminars and published magazines, has threatened to take down the consumer commentary web site 800Notes.com for having allowed its would-be customers and its former staff to post...

Consumer Law & Policy Roundup

Posted on October 22, 2010
by Deepak Gupta Here's a small slice of what happened this busy week in the world of consumer law and policy: The foreclosure scandal continues to get a lot of ink. In today's Washington Post, Eugene Robinson has a column...

The Hill Op-Ed on the CFPB Agenda

Posted on October 22, 2010
My contribution.

ACS Briefing on Concepcion

Posted on October 21, 2010
Here's the video of the American Constitution Society's panel discussion on AT&T v. Concepcion held on Tuesday at the National Press Club. If you want to hear some fireworks, skip forward to the presentation by Paul Bland (scroll down on...

Ray Brescia on New York's Response to the Latest Foreclosure Crisis

Posted on October 21, 2010
Here.

WSJ blames evil consumer lawyers

Posted on October 21, 2010
By Alan White Although the Wall Street Journal has provided some excellent coverage of the foreclosure crisis, this story by Robbie Whelan (via Naked Capitalism rebuttal) is pure drivel. The ludicrous premise is that a coterie of clever consumer lawyers...

First, BP Changed the Gulf Environmentally; Now, Its Money Is Changing the Gulf's Economic Landscape

Posted on October 20, 2010
Check this out.

Foreclosure Fraud Crisis - Good Explanation

Posted on October 17, 2010
Mike Konczal has posted a clear and basic explanation of the foreclosure fraud crisis, its causes and its potential impact, complete with diagrams and links to the best reporting.

Financial Incentives to Get People Out of Their Homes Quickly at Root of Flawed, Error-Ridden Foreclosure Process

Posted on October 16, 2010
That's the theme of this article in today's Washington Post. The story reports that participating lawyers were part of the problem: Law firms competed with one another to file the largest number of foreclosures on behalf of lenders - and...

Would the Foreclosure Fraud Have Occurred if the CFPB Were Already Here?

Posted on October 14, 2010
An interesting article here.

Robosigner Scandal Making for Strange Bedfellows

Posted on October 13, 2010
By Alan White From the AP we learn today that banks hired foreclosure specialists with no knowledge of mortgages or foreclosures to file foreclosure papers. Meanwhile, Treasury Secretary Geithner, HUD Secretary Donovan, and even Presidential spokesperson David Axelrod, piously intone...

Update on Dodd-Frank

Posted on October 13, 2010
A few months ago I put out a call for articles on the newly enacted Dodd?Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. The result is, ?Breaking Down Financial Reform: A Summary of the Major Consumer Protection Portions of the...

Federal judge denies Greek tycoon preliminary injunction against Go Daddy -- but misses the lack of federal jurisdiction

Posted on October 12, 2010
by Paul Alan Levy Eric Goldman carries a report today of a decision earlier this month by Judge David Campbell of the United States District Court for the District of Arizona. George Bobolas, a Greek real estate and media magnate,...

The Washington Post Reports That The Government Had Been Warned That The Mortgage Foreclosure Industry Was A Mess

Posted on October 10, 2010
We've learned in recent weeks that consumer mortgages have been foreclosed using illegal procedures and improper paper work. And now the Washington Post reports that the "Government had been warned for months about troubles in [the] mortgage servicer industry...

MIchael W. Hudson Quotes Ameriquest Loan Officer: "Every closing that we had really was a bait and switch,"

Posted on October 10, 2010
MIchael W. Hudson interviewed industry insiders for his new book, The Monster: How a Gang of Predatory Lenders and Wall Street Bankers Fleeced America--and Spawned a Global Crisis. It won't be out until October 26, but you can read a...

Some Commentary on Concepcion

Posted on October 09, 2010
Here's a roundup of some recent commentary on AT&T v. Concepcion, the Supreme Court on class-action bans. You can find more commentary, the briefs, and other information on this page. Bonnie Robin-Vergeer, at D.C. Legal Aid's Making Justice Real blog,...

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