Today is the twelfth anniversary of the Credit Slips launch date. I always like to mark the date because it is hard to believe that it has been that long. When we started, Barack Obama was a senator, and Elizabeth Warren was blogging (for us and others). The solar system had nine planets. Worldcom was the largest bankruptcy in U.S. history, and we were trying to parse the meaning of the not-always-clear bankruptcy amendments in 2005. OK, we are still trying to do the latter.

Happy birthday to us. Thanks for reading.

And, yes, that is a picture of Zachary Taylor.

Credit Slips is pleased to welcome back Professor Patricia McCoy as a guest blogger. Professor McCoy is the Liberty Mutual Insurance Professor of Law at Boston College Law School. She is a nationally known scholar, writing in the area of consumer financial regulation area. Professor McCoy worked at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau during its earliest days, and I understand some of her guest posts will offer her perspective on the current state of the CFPB. We look forward to her contributions.

My thanks to the Slipsters, and particularly to Bob, Mark and Anna, for making me feel so welcome to your space already. I've long been a fan of the generous and supportive environment you have created and nurtured over the years. Serious and yet fun. I'm thrilled to be joining in and hope to live up to what you have already created.

Thanks also for the multiple emails sharing insights on the results of the SEC Gender Gap study already; especially from those of you who have worked in similar settings.

Regular readers of Credit Slips will know that Mark Weidemaier will often co-post with Professor Mitu Gulati of Duke University. These posts, often on sovereign debt issues, are among our most widely read and commented upon. We are very pleased to announced that Mitu is joining as a permanent blogger. When trying to figure out how to introduce Mitu to our readership, I looked at his faculty bio, which is too good not to share in its entirety:

Mitu Gulati is a professor at Duke University. His research interests are currently in the historic evolution of concepts of sovereign immunity and the role that law can play as a symbol. He has authored articles in the Journal of Legal Studies, the Review of Finance and Law and Social Inquiry. He has won no awards, other than a second place finish in the fancy dress competition in 3rd grade (photo not available).

Characteristically, Mitu's bio is unduly modest. He is a very accomplished and prolific scholar who is well known within the legal academy. It is our honor and pleasure to have him join this often merry band of bloggers. We hope you enjoy his contributions.

The Gilbert Index blog was kind enough to feature Credit Slips in a Q&A. For those of you who are interested in how Credit Slips came about, check it out.

The number eleven has a lot of significance in the bankruptcy world. The Bankruptcy Code is, of course, title 11 of the United States Code. There is chapter 11. And, within chapter 11, one can make the eleven-eleven election under section 1111 — an election that is as difficult to explain in a bankruptcy classroom as it is to understand it.

The number eleven has new significance. Credit Slips launched on this date in 2006, making us eleven years old today. I hope that doesn't mean we have to repeat middle school.

It is with incredibly mixed feelings that I pass along to our readers that Professor Katie Porter is leaving our blog. Katie was one of the original bloggers on Credit Slips back in 2006. There were a number of us who were working together in an intensive data-collection phase of a research project, and a blog was a great way to have some intellectual interaction that was more than how to word a survey question. It worked and somehow the blog stayed around. Katie's posts are insightful, thought-provoking, and witty. We will miss her contributions.

If we have to lose one of our founding bloggers, it is at least for a very exciting reason. Katie is leaving Credit Slips is to focus her efforts on her recently announced candidacy for the U.S. House of Representatives in California's 45th Congressional District. Speaking for myself, I think Katie would be fantastic in Congress. She is whip-smart and a determined advocate for consumers. Former Credit Slips blogger Elizabeth Warren put it succinctly: "Katie is a fighter!" I wish Katie nothing but success in her campaign.

We also have made a change to the way we list our blog contributors. At one time, it made sense to distinguish between more frequent and less frequent contributors. Now, everyone is simply listed as a contributor. This change is long overdue, and I had been meaning to make it for a while. My day job seems to keep interfering with the many ideas I often have to improve the blog.

Credit Slips was fortunate to hear from Professor Gary Neustadter of Santa Clara Law this month on consumer credit issues.

He identified several emerging issues, including a serious weakness in  California's homestead exemption. What I enjoyed so much about his post was his analysis of not just the law, but also the credit market and how various GSE policies shape it.

His post on the delivery of consumer bankruptcy services wove together the best of the thinking on the deployment of technology in legal services, and the context-specific research on how people in financial distress. He imagines how the work of Credit Slips occasional Dalie Jimenez on paper-based self-help resources could be delivered digitally. The result would push the edges of how we think about legal practice.

We hope to have Gary back soon and appreciate his contributions!

Credit Slips is honored to have been selected as part of the ABA Journal's Blawg 100, their annual list of the top 100 blogs about law and lawyering. It is our second year in a row for inclusion on the list.

We appreciate all of our readers and are humbled by the time you spend with us. The comments to the posts continually demonstrate that one of the things that makes this blog work is our readership. Thanks for visiting.