Bankruptcy Data

Tax Rebates Lead to Bankruptcy Filings

03/29/12

Jialin Wing has a blog post up summarizing her and her co-authors very interesting NBER paper estimating that at least 30,000 to 60,000 liquidity constrained households this will be priced out of bankruptcy because of the increased costs that came with the 2005 changes to the bankruptcy law.

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Littwin on Bankruptcy Without a Lawyer

02/27/12

A few weeks ago, Katie Porter noted the release of the new book, Broke: How Debt Bankrupts the Middle Class. We are trying to feature posts from the authors of Broke about their contributions. Today's post comes from Professor Angela Littwiin of the University of Texas School of Law and a founding member of Credit Slips:

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Teach Consumer Bankruptcy

02/22/12

It's the time of year when professors, including those who are adjunct professors or are interested in teaching as adjuncts, submit their proposed courses for the next academic year. Many of us teach a general 3 or 4 unit bankruptcy course that uses a textbook, and some of us teach specialized seminars on chapter 11. This year think about teaching a seminar on consumer bankruptcy. I've got just the class all ready to go--course pack, syllabus, writing assignments, even in-class exercises.

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Fixing the "Fixed" Forms

02/08/12

Two weeks ago, I blogged about the Forms Modernization Project's effort to create new forms specifically for consumer bankrupts. The chair of that Project, Judge Elizabeth Perris, offered a lengthy comment that shared some information on the goals and process. I recommend it to you.  She noted that law students were asked to review the forms.

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The Backdrop for BROKE: Consumer Debt Then and Now

01/30/12

In the introductory chapter of the book, Broke: How Debt Bankrupts the Middle Class,  I present some data about consumer debt levels in the United States.

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Evaluating Mandatory Financial Education in Bankruptcy

01/28/12

In 2005, Congress amended bankruptcy law to require individual debtors with primarily consumer debts to complete an "instructional course on personal financial management" to be eligible to receive a discharge of their debts.

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Consumer Friendly Forms for Bankruptcy

01/28/12

In many respects, bankruptcy is a one-size-fits-all legal process. Yes, there are ample differences in the law (and a world of difference in practice) between the bankruptcy of a large corporation and a typical consumer. But the Bankruptcy Code itself contains plenty of provisions of general applicability. A major example of the one-size-fits-all approach to bankruptcy is the official forms for filing a case.

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How to Address Apparent Racial Disparity in the Consumer Bankruptcy System

01/21/12

The article discussed in the N.Y. Times story today is heavily empirical. It is also deliberately light on the prescriptive.

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