California Attorney General Kamala Harris has appointed Credit Slip's own Katie Porter as independent monitor for California's part of the national mortgage settlement. The five financial institutions involved in the settlement have committed to provide California homeowners with up to $18 billion in benefits in the settlement. Katie will be monitoring on behalf of the California AG to ensure that they comply. For details, see http://oag.ca.gov/news/press_release?id=2646 and http://www.latimes.com/business/money/fi-mo-banks-settlement-20120315,0,5768422.story. Congrats to General Harris on a wise choice!

Now for the local news: Although Katie won’t be commenting here on the national settlement or California’s part of it as a Credit Slips blogger, she will still be able to comment on other issues involving consumer credit and consumer bankruptcy, as time permits. She will also continue to be a law professor at the University of California-Irvine. We also wouldn't be surprised if she builds some empirical research into the monitoring process, given her commitment to data-driven legal enforcement and policy-making.