Available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4891322

Summary:

A rich literature uses law and social science methods to better understand household financial distress and overindebtedness both inside and outside of bankruptcy. This scholarship contributes to several ongoing scholarly conversations, such as those on income and wealth disparities across race and class, how people live in circumstances of financial precarity, why people turn to the legal system to solve their problems, and how to improve access to justice so people can get the help they need. We first review the current literature about who files bankruptcy, the contributors to people's need to file bankruptcy, what happens to them in bankruptcy court, and what happens after their bankruptcy cases conclude. We then outline a research agenda of "low-hanging fruit" that will contribute to broader sociological and socio legal research agendas, including economic mobility, aging, gender studies, health studies, family studies, social psychology, and policy work.

Commentary:

This article contains a good compilation  of other studies (but would benefit from an Table of Contents or some other structure to make finding particular details easier),  but is overtly  a challenge for other to do research in bankruptcy on other topics, including:

• Mobility Studies
• Aging Studies 
• Gender Studies 
• Family Studies 
• Health Studies 
• Social Psychology Studies 
• Access to Justice Studies 
• Policy Studies  

Hopefully not only will more academics take up this gauntlet,  but that they will also not only look at the dry petitions available on PACER actually engage with debtors, debtors' attorneys,  trustees and other boots-on-the-ground  participants in the bankruptcy system,  both in conducting and understanding their topics but also in constructively helping those stakeholders  provide more  meaningful representation and assistance to those in financial distress.  That's harder and  isn't something often valued by tenure committees,  so it's perhaps unlikely.

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To read a copy of the transcript, please see: