Bankruptcy? That’s Hott.

Google Zeitgeist 2006 is a fascinating read. Says Google:
A year’s worth of search speaks to our collective consciousness, and 2006 is no exception. To compile these year-end lists and graphs, we reviewed a variety of the most popular search terms that people typed into Google.
If you don’t mind, I’d rather ignore the fact that [...]

Professor Lawless Goes to Washington

Continuing the recap of the “Flat Earth Society” meeting (tm NACBA Prez Henry Summer), we turn to Professor Bob Lawless’s first-ever appearance on the hill. I can only imagine this as a “Mr. Smith” moment of the highest order, as the Republican-invited creditors’ chorus sang in perfect harmony (black is white, up is down, [...]

More Financial Fitness Tips to Keep You in the “Green”

MSNBC.com’s Laura T. Coffey provides ten tips to keep you from overspending this holiday season. And if you’re like me - last minute shoppers unite! - these tips are right on time.

Hospitals Learning Valuable Lesson About Collection Efforts

This article reprinted in the Sun News caught my eye. It seems hospitals are learning from their own mistakes and are revamping their formerly aggressive approaches to patient debt collection efforts. However, the rationale behind the move might be a little more fiscally-minded than ethically-minded. If you’ve never been the target of a hospital [...]

Alert: Missing Myrtle Beach Couple

I’m breaking from this blog’s usual topics to bring to readers’ attention this story, about a local Myrtle Beach couple, who disappeared en route to New York, where they were traveling to help celebrate Christmas and their daughter’s birthday.

This article from the Sun News gives more information. The Guays were last heard from this past [...]

More from the Senate Judiciary Committee’s BAPCPA Hearing

Read the submitted testimony of Susan Keating of the National Foundation for Credit Counseling.
What’s striking about this testimony to me is the tone, highly suggestive of a corporate partnership between credit counseling agencies and the creditors (speaking of “product” and “stakeholders”).
Read the ABA’s statement submitted to the committee. While I have a strong [...]

Another Court, Another Opinion Holding BAPCPA’s Provisions Unconstitutional

U.S. District Court Judge James Rosenbaum (Minneapolis) joined his colleagues in Georgia and Texas in holding recently that the credit-card-company-written law contains provisions that are constitutionally infirm. Specifically, Judge Rosenbaum targeted sections 526 and 528, portions of which which forbid attorneys from counseling their clients to take on more debt in contemplation of bankruptcy. As [...]

Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys Weigh In on Senate Hearing re: BAPCPA

Earlier this week a Senate hearing was held as the last-gasp chance of the outgoing majority to crow about their apparently successful decimation of consumer rights in the dreadfully drafted BAPCPA amendments. As the National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys‘ President Henry Summer put it, beautifully, the lineup invited by the Republicans was “the financial [...]

New ID Theft Scam Alert: Jury Duty

Kudos to Freedman Consulting’s Law Practice Management blog for alerting me to this one: an Identity Theft scam that starts with a stern-sounding call from someone who identifies him- or herself as a “jury coordinator” and tells you that a warrant has been issued for your arrest due to your failure to appear for jury [...]

Senate Dems Plan a Crackdown on Credit Card Practices

From the Consumer Law & Policy Blog (now blogrolled to the right here at the SC B&C Law Blog): a permitted reprint of CQ Today’s article on Senator Carl Levin’s plans to address aggressive credit card company policies.
Excerpt:
Levin took aim at what he described as unfair and confusing practices by credit card issuers, [...]