Papers by Bankruptcy Project Directors and Fellows

The papers below are written by Bankruptcy Project Fellows. Many of the papers are empirically based, and most are about bankruptcy, consumer law, and related areas.

Papers by Melissa Jacoby

• A list of Professor Jacoby's papers can be found at http://works.bepress.com/melissa_jacoby/.

Papers by Robert M. Lawless

• Did Bankruptcy Reform Fail? An Empirical Study of Consumer Debtors, 82 American Bankruptcy Law Journal 349 (2008) (with Littwin, Porter, Pottow, Thorne, and Warren).
  
  
• Small Business and the 2005 Bankruptcy Law: Should Mom and Apple Pie Be Worried?, 31 Southern Illinois Law Journal 585 (2007).
  
  
• The Paradox of Consumer Credit, 2007 University of Illinois Law Review 347.
  
  
• Los cambios de la normativia concursal estadounidense en 2005: Reduciendo parte de la red de seguridad, Revista de Derecho Concursal y Paraconcursal (La Ley), no. 6, at 45 (2007) (Shrinking Part of the Safety Net: The 2005 Changes in U.S. Bankruptcy Law, Journal of Insolvency & Quasi-Insolvency Law) (with Warren).
  
  
• The General Role Played by Specialty Law Journals: Empirical Evidence from Bankruptcy Scholarship, 80 American Bankruptcy Law Journal 523 (2006) (with David).
  
  
• Are Bankruptcy's Trials Vanishing? If So, Who Cares?, 79 American Bankruptcy Law Journal 995 (2005).
  
  
• Bankruptcy Filing Rates After a Major Hurricane, 6 Nevada Law Journal 7 (2005).
  
  
• The Myth of the Disappearing Business Bankruptcy, 93 California Law Review 745 (2005) (with Warren).
  
  

Papers by Adam Levitin

• Priceless? The Economic Costs of Credit Card Merchant Restraints, 55 UCLA Law Review 1321 (2008).
  
  
• Priceless? The Social Costs of Credit Card Merchant Restraints, 45 Harvard Journal on Legislation 1 (2008).
  
  
• Payment Wars: The Merchant-Bank Struggle for Control of Payment Systems, 12 Stanford Journal of Law, Business & Finance 425 (2007).
  
  
• Health Care Privacy Issues in Corporate Reorganizations, Materials Presented Before the American Bankruptcy Institute 2007 New York City Bankruptcy Conference (May 7, 2007) (with Cormier & Troop).
  
  
• The Problematic Case for Incentive Compensation in Bankruptcy, 156 University of Pennsylvania Law Review PENNumbra 88 (2007).
  
  
• Finding Nemo: Rediscovering the Virtues of Negotiability in the Wake of Enron, 2007 Columbia Business Law Review 83.
  
  
• The Merchant-Bank Struggle for Control of Payment Systems, 17 Journal of Financial Transformation 73 (2006).
  
  
• Toward a Federal Common Law of Bankruptcy: Judicial Lawmaking in a Statutory Regime, 80 American Bankruptcy Law Journal 1 (2006).
  
  
• The Limits of Enron: Counterparty Risk in Bankruptcy Claims Trading, 15 Journal of Bankruptcy Law & Practice 389 (2006).
  
  
• The Antitrust Super Bowl: America's Payment Systems, No-Surcharge Rules, and the Hidden Costs of Credit, 3 Berkeley Business Law Journal 265 (2005).
  
  

Papers by Angela Littwin

• Did Bankruptcy Reform Fail? An Empirical Study of Consumer Debtors, 82 American Bankruptcy Law Journal 349 (2008) (with Lawless, Porter, Pottow, Thorne, and Warren).
  
  
• Testing the Substitution Hypothesis: Would Credit Card Regulation Force Low-Income Borrowers into Less Desirable Lending Alternatives?, 2009 Illinois Law Review (forthcoming).
  
  
• Beyond Usury: A Study of Credit Card Use and Preference Among Low-Income Consumers, 86 Texas Law Review 451 (2008).
  
  

Papers by Lynn M. LoPucki

• Rise of the Financial Advisors: An Empirical Study of the Division of Professional Fees in Large Bankruptcies, 82 American Bankruptcy Law Journal 141 (2008) (with Doherty).
  
  
• Bankruptcy Fire Sales, 106 Michigan Law Review 1 (2007) (with Doherty).
  
  
• The Myth of the Residual Owner: An Empirical Study, 82 Washington University Law Quarterly 1341 (2004).
  
  
• Why Are Delaware and New York Bankruptcy Reorganizations Failing?, 55 Vanderbilt Law Review 1933 (2003).
  
  
• The Failure of Public Company Bankruptcies in Delaware and New York: Empirical Evidence of a “Race to the Bottom”, 54 Vanderbilt Law Review 231 (2001) (with Kalin).
  
  
• Patterns in the Bankruptcy Reorganization of Large, Publicly Held Companies, 78 Cornell Law Review 597 (1993) (with Whitford).
  
  
• Corporate Governance in the Bankruptcy Reorganization of Large, Publicly Held Companies, 141 University of Pennsylvania Law Review 669 (1993) (with Whitford).
  
  
• Venue Choice and Forum Shopping in the Bankruptcy Reorganization or Large, Publicly Held Companies, 1991 Wisconsin Law Review 11 (with Whitford).
  
  

Papers by Katherine Porter

• Arrears and Default Costs of Homeowners.
  
  
• Saving Up for Bankruptcy, 98 Georgetown Law Journal 289 (2008) (with Mann).
  
  
• Saving Homes in Bankruptcy: Housing Affordability and Loan Modification, 2008 Utah Law Review 1123.
  
  
• The Debt Dilemma, 106 Michigan Law Review 1167 (2008) (reviewing Ronald J. Mann, Charging Ahead: The Growth and Regulation of Payment Card Markets (2006)).
  
  
• Misbehavior and Mistake in Bankruptcy Mortgage Claims, 87 Texas Law Review 121 (2008).
  
  
• Did Bankruptcy Reform Fail? An Empirical Study of Consumer Debtors, 82 American Bankruptcy Law Journal 349 (2008) (with Lawless, Littwin, Pottow, Thorne, and Warren).
  
  
• Financial Education for Bankrupt Families: Attitudes and Needs, 24 Journal of Consumer Education 15 (2007) (University of Iowa Legal Studies Research Paper No. 08-03, 2008) (with Thorne).
  
  
• Bankrupt Profits: The Credit Industry's Business Model For Postbankruptcy Lending, 93 Iowa Law Review 1369 (2008).
  
  
• The Failure of Bankruptcy's Fresh Start, 92 Cornell Law Review 67 (2006) (with Thorne).
  
  
• The Potential and Peril of BAPCPA for Empirical Research, 71 Missouri Law Review 963 (2006).
  
  
• Going Broke the Hard Way: The Economics of Rural Failure, 2005 Wisconsin Law Review 969.
  
  

Papers by John A. E. Pottow

• For a list of papers by Professor Pottow, please see his faculty page.

Papers by Dr. Teresa A. Sullivan

• Dr. Sullivan has co-authored numerous articles with other Bankruptcy Database Project fellows. Those papers are listed under the other fellows' names, above and below.

Papers by Dr. Deborah Thorne

• Did Bankruptcy Reform Fail? An Empirical Study of Consumer Debtors, 82 American Bankruptcy Law Journal 349 (2008) (with Lawless, Littwin, Porter, Pottow, and Warren).
  
  
• Generations of Struggle (2008) (with Thorne and Sullivan).
  
  
• Young, Old, and in Between: Who Files for Bankruptcy?, Norton Bankruptcy Law Adviser, Sept. 2001, at 1 (with Sullivan and Warren).
  
  
• Illness and Injury as Contributors to Bankruptcy, Health Affairs, Feb. 2, 2005 (with Himmelstein, Warren, and Woolhandler).
  
  

Papers by Elizabeth Warren

• Book Chapters
  
  
• Fragile Families: The Vanishing Middle Class, in The Road to the American Dream: Lifting Working Families Out of Poverty (John Edwards et al. eds., 2007).
  
  
• Congress and the Credit Industry: More Bad News for Families, in Law and Class in America: Trends Since the Cold War (New York University Press 2006).
  
  
• Mortgage Debt, Bankruptcy and the Sustainability of Homeownership, in Credit Markets for the Poor 73-113 (Howard Rosenthal ed., Russell Sage Foundation 2005) (with Bahchieva and Wachter).
  
  
• Who Uses Chapter 13?, in Consumer Bankruptcy in Global Perspective 269 (Iain Ramsay ed., Oxford: Hart Publishing Co. 2003) (with Sullivan and Westbrook).
  
  
• Une Prospérité Précaire: Sur les Situations Financières Critiques dans la Classe Moyenne, in Rethinking the U.S. (Edited Volume Papirus 2003) (with Sullivan and Westbrook).
  
  
• Bankruptcy and the Family, in Families and Law (L. MacIntyre & M. Sussman eds., Haworth Press 1995) (with Sullivan and Westbrook).
  
  
• Reports
  
  
• Homeownership and Financial Distress: A Final Report to the Ford Foundation (2004) (with Schill and Wachter).
  
  
• Homeownership and Financial Distress: The Interplay of Tax, Real Estate and Bankruptcy Laws A Report to the Ford Foundation (2002) (with Bahchieva , Schill, and Wachter).
  
  
• Financial Difficulties of Small Businesses and Reasons for their Failures (1998) (prepared for the Small Business Administration) (with Sullivan and Westbrook).
  
  
• Academic Journals and Articles
  
  
• Did Bankruptcy Reform Fail? An Empirical Study of Consumer Debtors, 82 American Bankruptcy Law Journal 349 (2008) (with Lawless, Littwin, Porter, Pottow, and Thorne).
  
  
• Generations of Struggle (2008) (with Thorne and Sullivan).
  
  
• Less Stigma or More Financial Distress: An Empirical Analysis of the Extraordinary Increase in Bankruptcy Filings, 59 Stanford Law Review 213 (2006) (with Sullivan and Westbrook).
  
  
• Beyond Hospital Misbehavior: An Alternative Account of Medical-Related Financial Distress,100 Northwestern Law Review 535 (2006) (with Jacoby).
  
  
• Families Alone: The Changing Economics of Rearing Children, 58 University of Oklahoma Law Review 551 (2006) (Henry Lecture).
  
  
• What is Hurting the Middle Class?, Boston Review (Sept. 2005) (with twelve responses from academics and community leaders from different fields) (with Tyagi).
  
  
• Contracting Out of Bankruptcy: An Empirical Intervention, 118 Harvard Law Review 1197 (2005) (with Westbrook).
  
  
• Vanishing Trials: The New Age of American Law, 79 American Bankruptcy Law Journal 915 (2005).
  
  
• The Myth of the Disappearing Business Bankruptcy, 93 California Law Review 745 (2005), reprinted in 47 Corporate Practice Commentator 593 (2005) (with Lawless).
  
  
• Illness and Injury as Contributors to Bankruptcy, Health Affairs, Feb. 2, 2005 (with Himmelstein, Thorne, and Woolhandler) (most-read article for 2005, and top-ten most read for 2006 and 2007).
  
  
• The Over-Consumption Myth and Other Tales of Law, Economics, and Morality, 82 Washington University Law Quarterly 1485 (2005).
  
  
• The Economics of Race: When Making it to the Middle Isn’t Enough, 61 Washington & Lee Law Review 1771 (2005).
  
  
• Vanishing Trials: The Bankruptcy Experience, 1 Journal of Empirical Studies 913 (2004).
  
  
• The Phantom $400, 13 Journal of Bankruptcy Law and Practice 77 (2004).
  
  
• The New Economics of the American Family, 12 American Bankruptcy Institute Law Review 1 (2004).
  
  
• The Growing Threat to the Middle Class, 69 Brooklyn Law Review 401 (2004) (Sparer Lecture).
  
  
• Financial Collapse and Class Status: Who Goes Bankrupt?, 41 Osgoode Hall Law Journal 115 (2003) (Lewtas Lecture).
  
  
• What is a Women’s Issue? Bankruptcy, Commercial Law and Other Gender-Neutral Topics, 25 Harvard Women’s Law Journal 19 (2002).
  
  
• Bankrupt Children, 86 Minnesota Law Review 1003 (2002) (Lockhart Lecture).
  
  
• The Market for Data: The Changing Role of the Social Sciences in Changing the Law, 2002 Wisconsin Law Review 1 (2002) (Fairchild Lecture).
  
  
• Young, Old and In Between: Who Files for Bankruptcy?, Norton Bankruptcy Law Adviser, Sept. 2001, at 1 (with Thorne and Sullivan).
  
  
• Rethinking the Debates over Health Care Financing: Evidence from the Bankruptcy Courts, 76 New York University Law Review 375 (2001) (with Jacoby and Sullivan).
  
  
• Medical Problems and Bankruptcy Filings, Norton Bankruptcy Law Advisor, May 2000, at 1 (with Jacoby and Sullivan).
  
  
• Financial Characteristics of Businesses in Bankruptcy, 73 American Bankruptcy Law Journal 499 (1999) (with Westbrook).
  
  
• The Changing Politics of American Bankruptcy Reform, 37 Osgoode Hall Law Journal 189 (1999).
  
  
• The Changing Demographics of Bankruptcy, Norton Bankruptcy Law Advisor, Oct. 1999, at 1 (with Sullivan).
  
  
• More Women in Bankruptcy, American Bankruptcy Institute Journal, July 30, 1999 (with Sullivan).
  
  
• Women in Bankruptcy, American Bankruptcy Institute Journal, July 13, 1999 (with Sullivan).
  
  
• The Business Bankruptcy Project: The Work in Progress, 72 National Conference of Bankruptcy Judges 2.3 (1998) (with Westbrook).
  
  
• The Bankruptcy Crisis, 73 Indiana Law Journal 1079 (1998) (Harris Lecture).
  
  
• From Golden Years to Bankrupt Years, Norton Bankruptcy Law Advisor, July 1998, at 1 (with Sullivan and Westbrook).
  
  
• Bankruptcy and the Family, 21 Marriage & Family Review 193 (1995) (with Sullivan and Westbrook).
  
  
• Searching for Reorganization Realities, 72 Washington University Law Quarterly 3001 (1994) (with Westbrook).
  
  
• The Persistence of Local Legal Culture: Twenty Years of Evidence from the Bankruptcy Courts, 17 Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy 801 (1994), reprinted in Charles J. Tabb, Bankruptcy Anthology (2002) (with Sullivan and Westbrook).
  
  
• Consumer Debtors Ten Years Later: A Financial Comparison of Consumer Bankrupts 1981-1991, 68 American Bankruptcy Law Journal 121 (1994) (with Sullivan and Westbrook).
  
  
• Baby Boomers and the Bankruptcy Boom, Norton Bankruptcy Law Advisor, Apr. 1993, at 1 (with Sullivan and Westbrook).
  
  
• The Untenable Case for Repeal of Chapter 11, 102 Yale Law Journal 437 (1992), reprinted in Charles J. Tabb, Bankruptcy Anthology (2002).
  
  
• Laws, Models, and Real People, 13 Law and Social Inquiry 661 (1988) (with Sullivan and Westbrook).
  
  
• The Role of Empirical Data in Formulating Bankruptcy Policy, 50 Law and Contemporary Problems 195 (1987) (with Sullivan and Westbrook).
  
  
• Folklore and Facts: A Preliminary Report from The Consumer Bankruptcy Project, 60 American Bankruptcy Law Journal 293 (1986) (with Sullivan and Westbrook).
  
  
• Rejoinder: Limiting Access to Bankruptcy Discharge, 1984 Wisconsin Law Review 1087 (1984) (with Sullivan and Westbrook).
  
  
• Reducing Bankruptcy Protection for Consumers: A Response, 72 Georgetown Law Journal 1333 (1984).
  
  
• Limiting Access to Bankruptcy Discharge: An Analysis of the Creditors’ Data, 1983 Wisconsin Law Review 1091 (1983) (with Sullivan and Westbrook).