The AALS sections on Poverty Law and Clinical Legal Education will sponsor a joint program, The Debt Crisis and the National Response: Big Changes or Tinkering at the Edges?, Jan. 5, 2013, at the AALS Annual Meeting in New Orleans. The submission deadline has been extended to Aug. 31, 2012.
The program will explore ways in which our clients and communities have experienced the national debt crisis. Specifically, the program will consider the nations response to the crisis, considering the impact (or lack of impact) of new and proposed federal and local regulations on some of the major debt-related issues, including predatory lending, mortgage fraud, credit reporting, debt recovery, and litigation surrounding contested debt. The program will also include an advocacy-focused discussion on debt-related issues highlighting some of the new and different challenges communities face as a result of the recession. Among the questions to be considered are: What types of innovative programs exist at the local level? How are new regulatory structures being implemented? How are law school teachers, and specifically law school clinics, responding to the debt crisis? What sort of court-based or community-based programs are making headway on some of the issues affecting our clients? Where can we go from here?
In collaboration with the Georgetown Journal on Poverty Law & Policy, the joint session seeks papers for presentation and publication relating to the programs topic. Submissions may include papers on substantive law, interdisciplinary innovation or analysis, policy, empirical work, or clinical pedagogy, that relate to the issues of debt and lending in a wide range of contexts. For example, papers may explore the creation and development of innovative court-based, or community-based programs, ways in which new regulatory structures are being (or should be) implemented, the accessibility of the legal system to litigants contesting debt, as well as how law school teachers, and specifically law school clinics, are responding to the debt crisis.
The Georgetown Journal on Poverty Law & Policy will publish selected papers, no more than two of which will be selected for presentation at the joint program in New Orleans. Selected authors must agree not to publish their work in another journal. Not all papers selected for publication will be presented at the annual meeting.
Submission information: Papers should be submitted by email attachment to aals.debt.papers@gmail.com. As the Planning Committee will use a blind review process, a cover letter with the authors name and contact information should accompany the paper. The paper itself, including the title page and footnotes, must not contain any references identifying the author or the authors school. The submitting author is responsible for taking any steps necessary to redact self-identifying text or footnotes. The deadline for submitting papers has been extended to August 31, 2012. Authors of papers chosen for presentation and/or publication will be notified by September 28, 2012. Papers will be published in the June 2013 volume of the Journal.
Eligibility: Full-time faculty members of AALS member law schools are eligible to submit papers. Foreign, visiting (without a full-time position at an AALS member law school) and adjunct faculty members; graduate students; fellows and non-law school faculty are not eligible to submit. Faculty at fee-paid non-member schools are also ineligible.
For more information, please contact Jessica Steinberg, Planning Committee Co-Chair for the Poverty Law Section at jsteinberg@law.gwu.edu or Mary Spector, Planning Committee Co-Chair for the Clinical Legal Education at mspector@mail.smu.edu.
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