Federal Inaction And State Activity: Student Loan Edition
Partners David Gettings, Stephen Piepgrass, Tim St. George, Alan Wingfield and associate Amir Shachmurove are published in Law360 for their article titled, “Federal Inaction And State Activity: Student Loan Edition.” They write, “When the mortgage bubble burst, federal and state authorities came after every market participant, from originators to servicers. Eventually, the fervor died down, but only after millions had been spent on lawyers and publicists. The same features which foretold its collapse — creeping debt, rising defaults, steady securitization and unhappy borrowers — can now be detected within the private student loan market. Whether or not the federal government becomes an active ally of state authorities — or their enemy — lenders and servicers will still face possible liability predicated on both longstanding state and federal consumer protection statutes and the recent spate of borrower-related legislation in at least 16 ideologically-diverse jurisdictions. With portentous clouds gathering, it is time to prepare.”