Category: Academic & Scholarly News

  • It’s All Debt to Me

    Posted by

    Melissa Jacoby

    It’s All Debt to Me, by Professor Kate Elengold, is a newly available article sure to be of interest to many Credit Slips readers. Check out the abstract and read the paper by clicking on this link, but in the meantime, an observation from the article’s conclusion, coupled with the article’s graphic of a set of triangles, frames what to expect:

    This Article has identified, explained, and explored the way that varied laws and doctrine come together to create the “law of individual debt.” In so doing, it has offered both scaffolding and mapping to understand, holistically, how the law treats debtors and creditors across two axes: public/private and voluntary/involuntary. It asks and answers the question: why are four-similarly situated debtors, each carrying $15,000 of debt that they cannot repay, treated so differently under the law?

  • Joe Smith’s Life in Banking

    Posted by

    Melissa Jacoby

    Joe Smith has been (among other things!) the general counsel of a regional bank, Commissioner of Banks for North Carolina; and the official independent settlement monitor of the National Mortgage Settlement.  And Joe has some reflections on these experiences that I recommend reading. One easy way to get started is with his 2026 essay published by The North Carolina Banking Institute.

  • Professor Elizabeth Gibson wins Distinguished Service Award

    Posted by

    Melissa Jacoby

    Some happy news: Elizabeth Gibson, beloved UNC Law professor and alum,* is the recipient of the American College of Bankruptcy Distinguished Service Award, to be bestowed at a ceremony later this week. In the meantime, read a tribute to Elizabeth by Pat Vance, last year’s recipient, here.

    * Given the date, I’m obliged to mention that Elizabeth, also a Duke grad, may favor a certain other college basketball team known for donning a darker shade of blue.

  • Professor A. Mechele Dickerson on The Daily Show

    Posted by

    Melissa Jacoby

    Screenshot of Dickerson

    Gather around and check out University of Texas Professor Dickerson’s interview on The Daily Show, a substantive conversation with Jon Stewart about her new book, The Middle-Class New Deal.  Stewart decrees the book “fabulous!”

  • Association of American Law Schools Section Renames Mentoring Award for Juliet Moringiello

    Posted by

    Melissa Jacoby

    Read here about the Moringiello award.  And stay tuned for information about a memorial volume of scholarship in Juliet’s honor.

  • Telling Anecdotes About Bankruptcy Filers

    Posted by

    Pamela Foohey

    The very recently released Issue 99:3 of the American Bankruptcy Law Journal features the return of its book review series. My co-authors Robert Lawless and Deborah Thorne and I are honored that the journal’s editors picked Debt’s Grip: Risk and Consumer Bankruptcy for the series re-introduction. Professors Alexandra Sickler and Edward Janger kindly wrote book reviews, as well as participated in a recorded roundtable hosted by ABLJ and the National Conference of Bankruptcy Judges focusing on the book.

    In our response to their reviews, Anecdotes on the Data in Debt’s Grip, we highlight some of our go-to stories of bankruptcy filers’ journeys through financial hardship, as written to us, via the survey we send to the people who file bankuptcy. These stories are vivid reminders of people’s struggles. Or, as Ted Janger wrote, “[t]he picture painted by [us in Debt’s Grip] is dark.” Still, we hope that sharing the stories — in our response and in Debt’s Grip itself — will bring some light to the financial precarity faced by households across the United States.

    The full new issue of ABLJ is here.

  • How Not To Do A Bankruptcy Literature Review

    Posted by

    Jason Kilborn

    I was excited to see a new article purporting to offer a “bibliometric analysis of research on personal insolvency.” My excitement soon turned to disappointment as I realized how fundamentally flawed the “analysis” was. To make lemonade out of lemons, I offer this cautionary tale for future analysts to avoid a research method gone horribly wrong. (more…)

  • Encouraging People To File Bankruptcy — A Book To Recommend To Potential Clients

    Posted by

    Pamela Foohey

    A few months ago, Slipster Bob Lawless, former Slipster Deborah Thorne, and I published Debts Grip: Risk and Consumer Bankruptcy. The book draws on eleven years of data from the Consumer Bankruptcy Project to document the financial consequences of decades of risk privatization for individuals and families across the United States. Some people ultimately will file bankruptcy. Over the past few months, during panel discussions, podcasts, and interviews, we have been asked about the value of people filing bankruptcy earlier. We (well, at least I) think that for many people, filing sooner would be advantageous. People deplete their assets in the years they struggle before filing and suffer psychologically and physically from the stress of unmanageable debts. Based on our data, the stigma of bankruptcy and the inability to make good on their contracts remains a barrier to filing. So, how to encourage people to file? And, relatedly, how to make people feel “good” about their bankruptcies such that they have a better chance at succeeding when they are released post-bankruptcy into the same economic and social structure that may be stacked against them?

    I recently spoke about Debt’s Grip as part of the National Association of Bankruptcy Attorneys‘ meeting. There I saw Adrienne Hines, a bankruptcy attorney from Ohio who I knew from her social media presence as The Lady Like Lawyer (Instagram, TikTok). I picked up her new book, Bankruptcy Magic: The Life-Changing Power of Debt Relief With Dignity. The book puts into a written guide format for people the core message of her social media: that filing bankruptcy can be an effective solution to unmanageable debt challenges for which people do not need to feel ashamed. Adrienne’s social media accounts are an excellent resource for struggling debtors. Her book may be even more excellent. It is part of the answer to the question of how to encourage people to file sooner.

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  • The “Big Beautiful Bill” & Law-School Student Loan Debt

    Posted by

    Bob Lawless

    The president has done yet another thing that will have massive effects on legal education. No, this is not about how I must overhaul my Consumer Finance syllabus. Granted, the poor saps who teach Constitutional Law have it worse, but they knew what they signed up for.

    If you have not dug into the details of H.R. 1, An Act to Provide for Reconciliation Pursuant to Title II of H. Con. Res. 14, there are some biggies for those who care about how legal education is funded and administered. Known in some circles as the "Big, Beautiful Bill," this law massively overhauls federal student loan programs. Jeff Robledo at USA Today has a good summary of what the changes mean for borrowers generally. For law schools, there is a biggie.

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  • What Are Law Reviews Good For?

    Posted by

    Bob Lawless

    Adam recently posted his laments about the state of law reviews, which has been an issue only since the 1930s. I have a different theoretical lens that fills a gap in the literature that, at first blush, seems counterintuitive, and for the first time in the history of civilization fills an unexplored niche. I have now run out of law-review clichés (but invite commenters to list their favorites). 

    The Washington Free Beacon story about the publication practices at the Harvard Law Review moves me not at all. If web sites can be "rags," the Beacon is an egregious one. As I write this post, the main headline reads, "Trump Delivers Victory in 12-Day War: Thank You, Mr. President, for Your Attention to This Matter." I put no reliance on a document review from any organization with such a thin connection to reality and committed obeisance to a regime that itself treats reality as an obstacle to overcome. Maybe somebody with more time will dig through the thousands of pages of documents the Beacon made available. As far as I know, no one has questioned their authenticity although it would be fair to wonder whether the Beacon has curated the documents it made available.

    Still, Adam is not wrong, and he raises a good question. What good are law reviews in a world of widely available online sources where authors can quickly connect with audiences (such as the blog post you are reading)? Do law reviews now cause more harm than good?

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