News about the Business Law Program or news about faculty or students that relates to business law
Speaking about his new book, “Debt’s Grip,” Professor Robert Lawless sat down with WBGL’s Community Matters program. He discussed the research that went into the work, how bankruptcy affects the lives of everyday Americans, and common misconceptions about the bankruptcy process. He concluded with advice for how to support those going through financial hardships. Listen […]
Professor Richard Kaplan recently presented his paper, entitled “The Law and Economics of Financing Long-Term Care: An Unrecognized Impediment to Wealth Transmission,” at a symposium on The Law and Economics of Wealth Management and Transmission sponsored by the George Mason University Law School. The paper will be published in the George Mason Law Review.
Professor Ralph Brubaker ’89 and Jamie Sprayregen ’85 had a collegial debate about current bankruptcy issues at the National Conference of Bankruptcy Judges in Chicago in late September. The conversation was moderated by Bankruptcy Judge Michelle Harner. Watch the video of their debate online.
In a new opinion article published by Bloomberg, Professors Sean Anderson and Robert Lawless explain why they believe the Trump administration’s decision to allow workers to invest retirement savings in cryptocurrency and private equity is a bad decision for the workers. “There is no reason to expect that inviting plans to offer these alternative investments […]
In his new book, Debt’s Grip: Risk and Consumer Bankruptcy, Professor Robert Lawless and co-authors Pamela Foohey and Deborah Thorne examine the stories and the data behind people who file for bankruptcy in the U.S., finding the human nuance in the bankruptcy system. “When we thought about writing this book, we asked ourselves, ‘What do […]
We kick off season two with an engrossing conversation with Professor Robert Lawless about his new book, Debt’s Grip: Risk and Consumer Bankruptcy. The book explores financial precarity in the United States and utilizes original data from the Consumer Bankruptcy Project, including the words of bankruptcy filers themselves to shed light on their situations. Professor Lawless […]
The University of Illinois College of Law is proud to welcome Eric Baudry and Sarah Lawsky as new faculty members this fall. Baudry joins as an assistant professor of law with a specialty in tax law, poverty, and redistribution; Lawsky will serve as the L.B. Lall and Sumitra Devi Lall Professor of Law and the […]
Over the almost 45 years the Consumer Bankruptcy Project has been collecting data, the landscape of debt in the United States has shifted significantly. Updating that work is “Debt’s Grip,” a new book by Professor Robert Lawless and his fellow principal investigators telling the story of financial struggle in the United States in the words […]
The SECURE 2.0 Act of 2022 included six major changes pertaining to current plan participants in retirement plans. In a new article published in The Elder Law Journal, Professor Richard Kaplan examines and analyzes each of those changes and how they address some of the deficiencies in the present tax-subsidized matrix of employer-provided retirement savings […]
Professor Richard Kaplan presented Modernizing Medicare for Extended Healthspans at the Conference on Law, Healthcare, and the Aging Brain and Body, Harvard Law School’s Petrie-Flom Center on June 9, 2025. This paper considered how the Medicare program is likely to be affected by the latest developments in medical science pertaining to the aging brain and body. […]