by Deepak Gupta
- Banks Pressure Consumers As Overdraft Deadline Nears: Facing an August 15th deadline for existing bank customers to opt in to high-cost overdraft programs, bankers are using aggressive, often misleading marketing to target the most vulnerable cusomers, according to a new report. [Center for Responsible Lending]
Kagan and Consumer Issues: Do we know anything about near-Justice Elena Kagan's views on consumer law and policy, or on particular issues like preemption, arbitration, or class actions? The answer, in my view, is no--not really. One journalist predicts Justice Kagan will be a pro-regulation "pocketbook pragmatist."
- The Justice That Wasn't. At least one of Kagan's fellow shortlisters, by contrast, had a significant paper trial on consumer issues. Judge Diane Wood of the Seventh Circuit, a prolific scholar, has written knowledgeably about the problems of mandatory arbitration in the consumer context: "The problems we are encountering today have come as arbitration has expanded to two new areas: consumer transactions, and statutory claims. If arbitration is to play a significant role in the enforcement of public law, then arbitration itself must become more publicly accountable." Maybe she'll get the next seat?
- Professor Tribe on Taking Adjudication Private: Speaking to a gathering of state chief justices in his capacity as Senior Counselor for Access to Justice in the Obama Administration, Larry Tribe notes the hazards of private dispute resolution. "Adjudication conducted out of the public's sight mystifies instead of educating, depriving democracy of one of its essential wellsprings, that of seeing justice done." [ADR Prof Blog]
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