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Presentation
Consumer Bankruptcy & "Life in the Sweatbox"
Ipse Dixit (2018)
  • Pamela Foohey, Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law
Abstract
In this episode, Pamela Foohey, Associate Professor of Law at Indiana University Bloomington Maurer School of Law, discusses her paper "Life in the Sweatbox," co-authored with Robert M. Lawless, Katherine M. Porter, and Deborah Thorne, which will appear in the Notre Dame Law Review. Foohey explains how the the 2005 Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act resulted in consumers spending ever-longer amounts of time in the "financial sweatbox," or the period of time before an inevitable bankruptcy filing, during which their assets are further depleted and their quality of life is destroyed. She and her co-authors used data from the data from the Consumer Bankruptcy Project as well as data they gathered to learn who files for bankruptcy and why. They found that the narratives surrounding the use of consumer bankruptcy are largely inaccurate, and have resulted in inefficient policies that cause great harm to many consumers.
Keywords
  • consumer bankruptcy,
  • debt collection,
  • debt,
  • chapter 7,
  • chapter 13,
  • financial distress
Disciplines
Publication Date
December 4, 2018
Citation Information
Pamela Foohey. "Consumer Bankruptcy & "Life in the Sweatbox"" Ipse Dixit (2018)
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/pamelafoohey/73/