PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Benefits Companion - New IRS Guidance on SECURE 2.0 Act Student Loan Employer Contributions
Consumer Finance Monitor Podcast Episode: Recent Developments Affecting Student Loan Origination and Servicing
PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Benefits Companion - SECURE 2.0: Leveraging Opportunities Employees Want Most
PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Gavels & Gowns - Responding to Borrower Defense to Repayment Applications
State AG Pulse | Action By MN AG Ellison Could Ripple Through Debt Servicing Industry
The Labor Law Insider: Recent U.S. Supreme Court, NLRB Decisions Highlight Labor Issues in Higher Education
Consumer Finance Monitor Podcast Episode: The U.S. Supreme Court’s Decision Invalidating the Biden Administration’s Student Loan Forgiveness Plan and its Potential Legal Repercussions
Consumer Finance Monitor Podcast Episode: Recent Federal and State Debt Collection Developments
Consumer Finance Monitor Podcast Episode: SCOTUS Hears Oral Argument in Cases Challenging Biden Administration Student Loan Forgiveness Plan: Observations and Predictions
Two Federal Courts Deal Blow to Biden Administration’s Federal Student Loan Forgiveness Program: A Close Look at the Decisions
Law School Toolbox Podcast Episode 361: Student Loan Repayment (w/Derek Brainard of AccessLex Institute)
Law School Toolbox Podcast Episode 336: How to Decide Which Law School Offer to Accept
A Deep Dive into the Debate Over Federal Student Loan Forgiveness
Law School Toolbox Podcast Episode 294: Money Talk (w/Carrie Friedberg)
COVID-19 Impact for Health & Welfare Plans (Troutman Sanders and Pepper Hamilton COVID-19 Issues for Employers Podcast Series)
VIDEO: Top 10 COVID-19 Tips for Employers: Cares Act Tax Provisions Edition
Bankruptcy Basics and Recent Developments
PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Benefits Companion - Student Loan Benefits
Dean: Law Schools Use Merit Scholarships To Boost Rankings
Does This New ABA Report Signal Change For Law Schools?
Understanding the New Pregnant Workers Fairness Act and Full Scope of Pregnancy-Related Discrimination Laws for Schools - On June 27, 2023, the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act went into effect. This new law requires covered...more
In conjunction with efforts to forgive federal student debt for certain borrowers, President Biden’s Justice Department recently announced new guidance for its attorneys to use when deciding whether to recommend that a...more
Section 523(a)(8) of the Bankruptcy Code excepts from discharge in bankruptcy certain student loans, “unless excepting such debt from discharge under this paragraph would impose an undue hardship.” By its terms, section...more
A district court judge recently reversed and remanded a well-known bankruptcy decision discharging a significant student loan debt. In the Southern District of New York, Judge Philip Halpern, reviewing the bankruptcy court’s...more
On July 15, 2021, in the Homaidan opinion, the Second Circuit joined the Fifth and Tenth Circuits in deciding that certain student loans are dischargeable in bankruptcy. These three opinions are very important for the student...more
The non-dischargeability of private student loans in bankruptcy proceedings has long been assumed to be almost absolute, but a July 15, 2021 decision (Homaidan v. Sallie Mae) by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second...more
Student loans are notoriously difficult to shed through the bankruptcy process. A person must show that it would impose an "undue hardship" on them to be required to repay the student loans, and the test for proving undue...more
On Monday, the United States Supreme Court denied Thelma McCoy’s petition for a writ of certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, passing up a golden opportunity to bring uniformity to the...more
When the Bankruptcy Code was first enacted in 1978, student loan debt could be discharged either after the passage of five years since the repayment obligation began, or if repayment would impose an undue hardship on the...more
On February 2, 2021, Democratic Sens. Whitehouse, Brown, Blumenthal, Baldwin, and Warren introduced the Medical Bankruptcy Fairness Act of 2021. This Act resembles bankruptcy reform bills that the senators introduced in prior...more
We recently reported on a Fifth Circuit decision that ruled some private, for-profit student loans are dischargeable in bankruptcy without a showing of undue hardship—something unusual and inconsistent with the widely-held...more
On January 7, 2020, Chief United States Bankruptcy Judge Cecilia G. Morris of the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York issued a notable opinion in the case of Rosenberg v. N.Y. State Higher...more
Many student loan borrowers, lenders, and servicers operate under the presumption that student loans are generally not dischargeable in bankruptcy, absent an "undue hardship." That notion may no longer be a bright line rule,...more
Anyone who hasn’t heard about the “student loan crisis” in the U.S. hasn’t been paying attention. U.S. student loan debt is estimated to range from between $1.2 and $1.6 trillion with more than seven million borrowers in...more
The Department of Education has published a request for information in yesterdays Federal Register seeking comment on the factors used to evaluate claims of undue hardship made by student loan borrowers attempting to...more
Obtaining a bankruptcy discharge of debts is the primary tool in providing the "honest but unfortunate debtor" a fresh start. Yet, a student loan made or guaranteed by a governmental unit or nonprofit is excepted from the...more
Title 11 U.S.C. § 523(a)(8) of the United States Bankruptcy Code provides that, in order to obtain a discharge of an otherwise nondischargeable student loan, an individual in bankruptcy (the “debtor”) must establish that he...more
In July, this blog explored the Second and Ninth Circuit’s application of the “undue hardship” test under 11 U.S.C. § 523(a)(8), which states that student loan debt is presumptively non-dischargeable. To refresh, in those...more