Courts, Default Judgments and the Uniform Law Commission's Uniform Act

When faced with a civil lawsuit, defendants who do not respond to the summons and complaint in a timely manner are considered “in default.”  When the plaintiff makes the required showing of default and offers proof to the court of the amount of money owed, the court will issue a default judgment in the plaintiff's favor. As a result of studies that report that default judgments are entered in more than half of all debt collection actions, the Uniform Law Commission (ULC) underwent an in-depth process to draft an Act to set unified standards and provide litigants access to the data required to understand the claims being asserted against them and to advise consumers of the adverse effects of failing to raise defenses or seek the voluntary settlement of claims. The Act also seeks to provide a uniform framework in which courts can fairly, efficiently, and promptly evaluate the merits of requests for default judgments while balancing the interests of all parties and the courts.

In this webinar our subject matter experts, Judith Fox and Raymond P. Pepe, will address the recently adopted Uniform Consumer Debt Default Judgments Act (the Act). The Act establishes rules that creditors must follow to obtain a default judgment in consumer debt collection lawsuits.

Learning Objectives

• Review fundamentals for pre-filing actions.
• First-party and third-party creditors and the FDCPA
• Civil standards of proof to obtain a default judgment.
• Examine how default judgments are obtained.
• How default judgments are enforced in debt collections.
• Pre-Suit Strategies
• Debt Collection Litigation
• Default Judgments
• Overview of the act and description of core policy decisions - how the law would be applied.
• Drafting insights - how the proposed law (ACT) looked at the current state of the law
• Review issues that come up in recent enactment efforts -state law conflicts

CLE PENDING

Speakers

Judith Fox

Judith Fox is retired from the Notre Dame Law School where she was a Clinical Professor for twenty-five years. Ms. Fox directed the Economic Justice Project, a low-income clinic specializing in foreclosure and eviction defense. Ms. Fox’s advocacy and research focuses on housing issues and debt collection. She has served on a number of boards and committees, including the Consumer Advisory Board of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the National Association of Consumer Advocates, Indiana Supreme Court Coalition for Access to Justice, the Indiana Supreme Courts’ Commission on Equity and Access, and as the reporter for the Uniform Code Commission’s Consumer Debt Default Judgment Act.

 Ms. Fox has received numerous awards for her advocacy, including the Drum Major Award for Social Justice, the Granville Clark Award for peace and Justice and St. Joseph County Jobs for Justice Community Service Award. Ms. Fox has authored a number of publications relating to debt collection and housing policy. Her book, Foreclosure Echo: How the Hardest Hit Have Been Left Out of the Economic Recover focuses on the housing issues which remain in the wake of the foreclosure crisis. Ms. Fox provides lectures and seminars across the country on issues related to housing and debt collection.

Raymond P. Pepe

Raymond Pepe is of-counsel in the Harrisburg Office of K&L Gates LLP. He received his undergraduate education at Georgetown University and his J.D. from the Georgetown Law Center. He also pursued graduate work in economics at Penn State University. Prior beginning the private practice of law he worked as counsel to the Minority Leader of the PA House of Representatives and as Legislative and Regulatory Counsel for eight years for Pennsylvania Governor Dick Thornburgh. He has a broad administrative law and government affairs practice, primary involving the regulation of financial institutions, state and local tax, campaign finance, lobbying regulation, ethics, and unclaimed property. He served as the chair of the Drafting Committee of the Uniform Law Commission that developed the Uniform Consumer Debt Default Judgments Act. He has served as a member of the Pennsylvania delegation to the Uniform Law Commission since 1983. In addition to his work on the Consumer Debt Default Judgments Act, he has served as chair or co-chair of the Uniform Law Commission’s Drafting Committees dealing with remote notarization, the interstate recognition of health care volunteer during disasters and civil asset forfeiture. He has also served on the Executive Committee of the Uniform Law Commission and on the Commission’s Drafting Committees dealing with mortgage modifications, the 1995 and 2016 revisions to the Uniform Unclaimed Property Act, revisions on the Uniform Law on Notarial Acts, the Uniform Directed Trust Act, the Uniform Consumer Leasing Act, and revisions to Article 6 of the Uniform Commercial Code.