I’ve been getting a lot of emails and on-line comments in recent days from people who work in the mortgage industry about the Lisa Cook mortgage situation. What I’m seeing in these comments is a serious gulf between lawyers and non-lawyers. The non-lawyers tell me that “This is how it is supposed to work.” To which my response is “Have you actually read the legal documentation?” (more…)
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Pulte’s Latest Bad Faith Accusation
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Bill Pulte’s newest fraud claim against Lisa Cook is more outlandish and desperate than his original attack.
Pulte’s latest claim is based on Cook having rental income from 2021 second home mortgage in Cambridge. Pulte alleges that this means that Cook defrauded the lender by claiming the property as a second home, when it was actually intended as an investment property.
Once again, this is Pulte acting in bad faith to abuse his authority. There is no basis whatsoever on the current evidence for Pulte to be making a mortgage fraud referral to DOJ for Cook’s Cambridge mortgage. (more…)
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The President’s Firing of Lisa Cook Is Illegal
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President Trump fired Federal Reserve Board Governor Lisa Cook tonight based on unproven allegations by his politically motivated henchman that Cook engaged in mortgage fraud. The President’s actions are illegal. He currently has no legal basis to fire Cook. Instead, he disregarded even a modicum of due process in order to achieve a political goal.
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Bill Pulte’s Enemy’s List
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The media coverage about President Trump's demand that Federal Reserve Board Governor Lisa Cook resign based on alleged occupancy fraud on a 2021 mortgage application has missed the real story: how terrifyingly inappropriate FHFA Director William Pulte has behaved. Pulte is using control of the GSEs to pursue a political enemies list. That is an incredibly dangerous abuse of office. We do not tolerate this with the IRS, and we should not tolerate it with FHFA. Pulte should resign.
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Chapter 11s Did Not Spike in July 2025
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There were a number of reports that commercial chapter 11 filings jumped dramatically in July 2025. Unfortunately, these headlines appear to be from junk data and from sources that should know better such as the American Bankruptcy Institute and Epiq AACER. From working with both organizations in the past, I know they value accuracy. This post is a plea to do better.
The headlines are that commercial chapter 11 filings in July 2025 jumped 78% on a year-over-year basis. Supposedly, there were 911 commercial chapter 11s in July 2025 compared with only 512 in July 2024. Amid all the concerns about our national economy, that would be a notable increase if only it was true. Of those 911 new chapter 11s, almost a third were from the Genesis Healthcare bankruptcy. Ironically, Epiq is the claims agent and keeper of the public docket for the case. When a corporate group files bankruptcy, each one of its affiliates files its own bankruptcy petition. There is no connection between how the corporate group is organized and the size of the case. For example, the similarly sized Del Monte Foods filed bankruptcy with only 18 companies in its corporate group.
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Debt’s Grip Now Available!
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Today is the official release date for our new book, Debt's Grip: Risk and Consumer Bankruptcy, from the University of California Press. Debt's Grip uses eleven years of court records and surveys from the Consumer Bankruptcy Project to provide a thick description of what it means to live in financial precarity in the United States. Through personal narratives from our surveys, bankruptcy filers describe in their own words the privations and struggles they suffered. It has been a privilege to work with Pamela Foohey (also a Slips blogger) of the University of Georgia and Debb Thorne of the University of Idaho to put this book together.
We wrote the book so it would be accessible to nonlawyers. The second chapter of the book describes the bankruptcy process in plain English. We then continue by documenting the increasingly lengthy period of time people sit in the financial "sweatbox" before filing bankruptcy. The next three chapters are built around types of debts–home and car debts, medical debts, and credit card and other unsecured debts. Demographics are part of the bankruptcy story. A chapter discusses how the bankruptcy system both reflects and exacerbates larger patterns of racial inequality. Another chapter looks at the overrepresentation of women and especially single women raising children. We then look at the fastest growing group of bankruptcy filers — adults age 65 and over. The book then turns to how debt collection and changes in that industry have shaped bankruptcy filings. The final chapter was supposed to be about the exceptions — bankruptcy filers with resources who were using the system to escape debts they could pay. I say "supposed to be" because we could not find those cases from the 8,800 files in our sample. Well, we did find one, but the court dismissed the case!
The book is available from the UC Press, Bookshop.org, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other outlets. We have a busy semester of events where we will be discussing the book and are always looking for more opportunities.
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Arbitration for Thee, But Not for Mike Lindell
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The Eighth Circuit has overturned an arbitration award in favor of a software developer who took up the $5 million challenge of MyPillow founder, Mike Lindell, to "Prove Mike Wrong" about his claims the 2020 presidential election was stolen. The dispute went to arbitration per the boilerplate predispute terms in Mr. Lindell's contest rules. The arbitrators heard the evidence, gave reasons for their decisions, and decided in favor of the software developer. The software developer then used the Federal Arbitration Act, which requires federal courts to confirm an arbitration award (making them enforceable as a court judgment).
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Will Corporate Treasuries Have Any Interest In Using Stablecoins?
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With the GENIUS Act signed into law now we get to see if stablecoins can actually walk the walk, not just talk the talk. The story the stablecoin industry has told is one of payments innovation, particularly for international payments, with stablecoins poised to displace the expensive and ungainly wire transfer system. Is this right?
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The “Big Beautiful Bill” & Law-School Student Loan Debt
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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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Teaching Trustee Exemption Planning in Bankruptcy
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Since I began teaching the bankruptcy survey course, I've added extra material apart from the textbook that I've named "trustee exemption planning." The core of this material is Schwab v. Reilly, 560 U.S. 770 (2010), which I've assigned more or less in its entirety. The case is a useful vehicle to discuss how to claim exemptions, what debtors (and their attorneys) may do if the value of property is unclear, what trustees likewise may do if the value of property is unclear, and how trustees may make money for creditors from an estate. The debtor, Reilly, also has a moving story about opening a restaurant and wanting to keep kitchen equipment that is sentimental to her. I give students her handwritten schedules outlining every piece of equipment she seeks to retain. The case also outlines how a trustee can preserve value for the estate beyond the relevant exemptions.
But the case is getting older. The forms modernization project updated Schedule C to align with its holding. Enter a new case, published about a month ago, In re Collins, Case No. 24-54928, Judge John E. Hoffman, Jr., Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Ohio. Bill Rochelle highlighted it for its clarification of what a trustee must do to object to an exemption claiming "100% of FMV." I am posting about the opinion to further highlight it for its usefulness in teaching about exemptions in consumer bankruptcy.