A drawback of student loans is that a debtor must show “undue hardship” to discharge them in bankruptcy. An advantage of student loans is that most of them may be repaid using income-driven repayment (“IDR”) plans, under which the debtor can satisfy the obligation by paying a share of...

The law of mortgage assignment has taken center stage amidst foreclosure crisis, robosigning scandal, and controversy over the Mortgage Electronic Registration System. Yet a concept crucially important to mortgage assignment law, the idea that “the mortgage follows the note,” apparently has...

A review of pooling and servicing agreements from large subprime securitization programs in 2006 reveals that about 10% of the contract ban loan modifications altogether. The other 90% do not seem to forbid win-win loan modifications (defined as modifications that benefit the borrower and...

To interpret the open-ended phrase “undue hardship,” courts must look not just to the goals of the nondischargeability provision in isolation, but also to the broader purposes of Title IV of the Higher Education Act (HEA), the statutory scheme governing federal student loans. Over 90 percent...

Over 300,000 student loan borrowers have applied to the Department of Education for administrative relief from federal student loans on the ground that they were deceived or otherwise victimized by their schools. The Department adopted relatively borrower-friendly rules for this process in 2016....

The SEC's proposal that rating agencies be required to disclose 100% of their ratings actions in a publicly accessible format is a step in the right direction, especially in light of the dominant rating agencies' claims that their issuer-pays business model is justified on the ground that it...

The quot;worldwide credit crisisquot; has thrust credit rating agencies into the spotlight, with attention focused on their ratings of novel structured finance products. Policymakers have undertaken a number of initiatives intended to address perceived problems with such ratings - enhancing...