(866) 635-2689 for Personal Injury or (866) 635-9402 for Criminal Defense
Find a Local Lawyer
Divorce (866) 635-6190
Personal Injury (866) 635-2689
Criminal Defense (866) 635-9402
Credit Slips 

A discussion on credit and bankruptcy.
Post Frequency: 12.8/day Last Entry: April 01, 2011 at 09:01:41 Recent Entries: 1126
By Bob Lawless, Adam Levitin, Angie Littwin, Katie Porter,
John Pottow, Debb Thorne, Elizabeth Warren
Go to Credit Slips, find other Bankruptcy blogs, or browse all law blogs.
Look for Lubben's Lucidity Here
Posted on May 06, 2009Professor Stephen Lubben of Seton Hall has appeared in the New York Times, the Associated Press, PBS, and many other media outlets commenting on the Chrysler bankruptcy, and now he has coming back to Credit Slips. Lubben has kindly agreed...
Bankruptcy Filings Dip Slightly in April
Posted on May 04, 2009April 2009 bankruptcy filings dipped slightly from March. The 2.2% decline keeps the calendar year 2009 in line with recent historical patterns of heavy filing increases in the first part of the year followed by no changes or slight declines...
Thank You Again to David Lander
Posted on May 04, 2009Credit Slips guest blogger David Lander wrote me over the weekend and said he might have one more post, but before he got away, I wanted to thank him for taking time out of his busy schedule to share his...
Thanks to Demos
Posted on May 01, 2009Several years ago Demos organized a small conference to bring together consumer advocacy groups with academic and think tank economists and sociologists and a few bankruptcy and consumer protection lawyers and law profs and Foundation funders. Not only was it...
Debt Management Plans and Chapter 13 Plans: Non Identical Twins Or Distant Cousins?
Posted on April 29, 2009The drop in the percentage of U.S. consumer bankruptcy filings that are chapter 13 cases (commented upon in Credit Slips recently by Bob Lawless) is mirrored by the reduction in the percentage of overindebted consumers who are ?qualifying? for Debt...
Chrysler and Foreclosures: the Contrast
Posted on April 28, 2009Today it's reported that Chrysler has convinced its creditors to agree to modify its debt obligations. Chrysler was able to do this in part because of the leverage it had by threatening to file for bankruptcy. It's instructive to contrast...
Does Anybody Know If Credit or Foreclosure Counseling Helps?
Posted on April 28, 2009The infusion of millions of dollars to pay "counselors" to forestall foreclosures on behalf of consumers who are delinquent on their mortgage payments seems as American as apple pie and should perhaps help some homeowners. These dollars are split among...
Creating Legislative Intent Years After Passage of Revised Article 9
Posted on April 27, 2009The legislative drafting errors in BAPCPA have certainly launched a fascinating set of statutory construction challenges for the courts. For example: What level of ambiguity is necessary before the court resorts to legislative intent? If the statute itself is clear...
Welcome to David Lander
Posted on April 27, 2009St. Louis bankruptcy attorney David Lander has kindly agreed to a reprise of his guest blogging stint on Credit Slips for a few days. Lander is with the law firm of Thompson Coburn, LLP, and is well known to many...
Why Card Issuers Engage In Rate-Jacking
Posted on April 26, 2009The media has been abuzz recently with articles (here and here and here and also here) about rate-jacking--the often arbitrary increases in cardholders' interest rates. At first glance rate jacking makes little sense. Why raise rates on a good, paying...
A Map that Is Cool, Useful, and Scary
Posted on April 24, 2009Slate has a put up a map that animates first job growth and then scary job losses from January 2007 to February 2009. It's worth a look, although the sea of red at the end might cause some sleepless nights....
Mortgage Modification Vote in Senate
Posted on April 24, 2009Credit Slips has featured a lot of articles about a legislative proposal to give bankruptcy judges the power to modify home mortgages in chapter 13 (here, here, here, here, and here for a just a few examples). Heck, we were...
Finally, Some White House Interest in Credit Card Abuses
Posted on April 23, 2009The Obama Administration today turned its attention toward abusive credit card practices. After years of presidencies that were at best indifferent or at worst supportive of the credit card industry abuses, to finally have the White House give some attention...
Chapter 13 Rate Down Sharply in March
Posted on April 21, 2009The 2005 changes to the U.S. bankruptcy law were supposed to move more debtors into chapter 13 with the idea that they would have to pay at least a portion of their debts. In March, however, the chapter 13 rate...
Mortgage Symposium at Pepperdine
Posted on April 15, 2009On Friday, Pepperdine University School of Law is hosting a symposium entitled, "Bringing Down the Curtain on the Current Mortgage Crisis and Preventing a Return Engagement." As the announcement notes, the Pepperdine Law Review is bringing top scholars and Bob...
Elizabeth Warren on The Daily Show
Posted on April 15, 2009Credit Slips co-blogger Elizabeth Warren officially just became the coolest person I know. She will appear as tonight's guest on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. One of the other Credit Slips co-bloggers told me that "being the coolest person...
AALS Debtor-Creditor Call for Papers
Posted on April 11, 2009The Association of American Law Schools' Debtor-Creditor Section issued a call for papers on debtor-creditor scholarship, most broadly understood, for presentation at the AALS Annual Meeting in New Orleans in January 2010. Proposals are welcome from a wide array of...
Interchange Fee Settlement
Posted on April 07, 2009MasterCard settled a lawsuit brought by the European Commission's Directorate General for Competition, which alleged that MC (and Visa's) "Multilateral Interchange Fee" (MIF) an interbank fee for cross-border transactions in Europe (basically good old US interchange) was anticompetitive...
Does President Obama need to nominate 339 (or so) bankruptcy judges?
Posted on April 06, 2009Tuan Samahon's new article, Are Bankruptcy Judges Unconstitutional?, 60 Hastings L. Journal 233 (2008), offers a fresh twist on the constitutionality of the bankruptcy judiciary. He sidesteps the Northern Pipeline v. Marathon debate about whether bankruptcy judges can or should...
Courts as Creditors
Posted on April 06, 2009I teach my students that the days of the debtor's prison and the workhouse are long past; the only debt you can go to prison for are domestic support obligations. But it turns out that there's another jailable offense: failing...
Bankruptcy Filings Rising Faster Than Expected
Posted on April 02, 2009In March 2009, data from Automated Access to Court Electronic Records (AACER) report there were almost 131,000 total U.S. bankruptcy filings for a rate of 5,945 filings per business day. That is a 9.2% increase from February and a year-over-year...
Landing Claims from LandAmerica
Posted on March 31, 2009A Richmond Times-Dispatch reporter, Emily Dooley, called me yesterday and clued me into an interesting story from the bankruptcy of LandAmerica, the Virginia based title insurance company that is in chapter 11. Her story is here, and Credit Slips readers...
Pun of the Day
Posted on March 31, 2009Several people have asked me why Obama can't simply order a restructuring plan for the auto makers. As I've explained, his ability to do so depends on the company: he can't dictate terms to GM, but Chrysler he can fix...
Consumer Overindebtedness Around the World
Posted on March 27, 2009My plan for the evening is to go in search of a giant sculpted head of Karl Marx. Fortunately, I'm in Chemnitz, Germany, where such a monument is a feature of the town square, a holdover from the days when...
AIG Bonuses as Fraudulent Transfers
Posted on March 27, 2009We?ve heard Fed Chairman Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Geithner say that there are no legal avenues to clawing back the AIG bonuses. I?m not so sure that?s true. What about good old fraudulent transfer law? That?s a cornerstone of creditor-debtor...
Laughing through the Pain
Posted on March 26, 2009This economic meltdown isn't fun for anyone, not even bankruptcy law professors. But Americans are creative, resilient folks and in the midst of hardship, some people are finding ways to cheer themselves with humor. Here are three recent examples to....
Going Broke Like a Pro
Posted on March 25, 2009There are a couple of interesting stories in the sports mags about the financial problems of professional athletes. ESPN has a piece about Michael Vick's Chapter 11. And Sports Illustrated has a longer piece about why professional athletes often have...
Thank You, Professor Kilborn
Posted on March 23, 2009In addition to Professor Weller, Credit Slips also is saying "come back again soon" to Professor Jason Kilborn. As he always does for us, Professor Kilborn has provided an international and comparative perspective on consumer indebtedness and bankruptcy...
Thank You, Professor Weller
Posted on March 23, 2009Credit Slips needs to thank Professor Christian Weller again for all of his contributions and insights as a guest blogger. As an economist, his posts always add a new perspective to our other content. Thanks again, Christian, for taking the...
How to Start to Get Trillions in Lost Wealth Back
Posted on March 22, 2009The fact that wealth is rapidly declining deserves public policy attention. Wealth serves critical functions in the U.S. economy that relies heavily on individual initiative. It is primarily an insurance against a range of economic risks. The more such insurance...
Previous | Next
More owners facing foreclosure - Many paying a price for easy credit
Timothy Duggan, Shareholder in Stark & Stark's Real Estate Gro...
Ex-Spouses Can Ruin Each Other's Credit
Ex-Spouses Can Ruin Each Other's Credit By Kimberly Palmer, US New...
How Will My Divorce Affect My Credit?
A very good overview of some of the credit issues in divorce. ----...
Truth In Lending Act
Consumer Loans and Consumer Credit Protection Act
Bankruptcy Law
A complete prime (pre-2005)
Collection Agencies and Creditors
How to deal and stop the harassment
Federal Adoption Tax Credit
Financial Incentive for Adoptive Parents
My fiance's check is DD into a local credit union. Bank seems to have a pattern of "invisibly holding" charges from the debit card until just HOURS before his DD is processed (and this is after hours, of course). Over th
Have your fiance take the information you've collected and go into the bank...
What can i do about continued charges on closed account?
IMMEDIATELY call your bank and report the charges as fraudulent. They will be ab...
My father died and left my mother $200,000 (life insurance) My Mother died 2 years later leaving my sister and I with both about $75,000 each. (including house/vehicles/belongings which I never got). We were supposed to
File a police report. Two police reports, one for you and one for your sister. G...
Must I refinance my house aftering taking full ownership after a divorce via a quit claim?
When financing there are at least two documents...the mortgage and the note. The...
Should I return a phone call from a collection agency that doesn't name their client in the message?
In the county of the state where I live in the US, I am able to go to the websit...

My fiance's check is DD into a local credit union. Bank seems to have a pattern of "invisibly holding" charges from the debit card until just HOURS before his DD is processed (and this is after hours, of course). Over th
Have your fiance take the information you've collected and go into the bank...
What can i do about continued charges on closed account?
IMMEDIATELY call your bank and report the charges as fraudulent. They will be ab...
My father died and left my mother $200,000 (life insurance) My Mother died 2 years later leaving my sister and I with both about $75,000 each. (including house/vehicles/belongings which I never got). We were supposed to
File a police report. Two police reports, one for you and one for your sister. G...
Must I refinance my house aftering taking full ownership after a divorce via a quit claim?
When financing there are at least two documents...the mortgage and the note. The...
Should I return a phone call from a collection agency that doesn't name their client in the message?
In the county of the state where I live in the US, I am able to go to the websit...








