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Program Details

This week on Utah NOW - we're exploring the high-cost debt industry in Utah.

In particular, we're focusing on payday lenders who have found a niche in places where there are a high number of working poor, minorities and elderly. Some say this trend is changing the culture and the assumptions we hold about borrowing money.

We'll ask if these lenders are providing a needed service or exploiting the most vulnerable people in society.

Click below for more information.

utahconsumer.org

andjusticeforall.org


Filed under the following topic(s): Politics and Economy.

Guest Bios

Christopher Peterson is an Associate Professor of Law at the University of Florida and a Visiting Professor of Law at the University of Utah where he teaches courses on contracts, commercial law, and consumer rights. Professor Peterson's research interests have focused on the law and policy of consumer debt, particularly high cost debt.

Prior to his appointment at the University of Florida, Professor Peterson served as judicial clerk with the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, and then as consumer advocate with the United States Public Interest Research Group, a public interest organization in Washington, D.C. While in Washington, Professor Peterson lobbied Congress and federal regulatory agencies on behalf of approximately one-half million members of state public interest research organizations around the country.

Professor Peterson has lectured widely on credit policy, including recent presentations at Harvard Law School, New York University, and The Ohio State University as well as international presentations in Berlin, Lima, London, Warsaw, and Zurich. Numerous media outlets have covered his work, including USA Today, The Washington Post, The Guardian, American Banker, the Chicago Tribune, the National Law Journal, ABC News, and the New York Times. Professor Peterson has given invited testimony before the United State Senate Banking Committee. His research has appeared in various publications including the Florida Law Review, the Temple Law Review, and Ohio State Law Journal, the American Law Review, the Cardozo Law Review, the Catholic Law Review, and the Minnesota Law Review. Professor Peterson is also the author of a book on the history, economics, and law of high cost consumer debt which won the American College of Consumer Financial Services Layers' outstanding book of the year award for 2004. Prior to the collapse in nation's subprime home mortgage industry, Professor Peterson wrote an article exploring regulatory problems in this market. This piece was recently named the outstanding law review article of the year by the American College of Consumer Financial Services Lawyers. Last year, the National Association of Consumer Agency Administrators named Professor Peterson the nation's outstanding consumer advocate of the year in recognition of his role in promoting an act of Congress limiting the price of loans made to military service members.

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