Susan Block-Lieb

Professor Block-Lieb, the Cooper Family Chair of Urban Legal Studies, teaches bankruptcy, secured transactions, consumer protection, and other commercial law courses at Fordham Law School, including advanced courses on Corporate Reorganization in Bankruptcy and International Insolvency Law. She is General Counsel and a member of the Board of Directors for the Coalition for Debtor Education, a member of the Board of Directors for Fordham University’s Center on International Policy Studies, and an inducted member of the International Academy of Commercial and Consumer Law, the American College of Bankruptcy and the International Insolvency Institute. She chairs the ABA’s subcommittee on International Insolvency Law and is a delegate from the American Bar Association to UNCITRAL’s Insolvency Working Group. Together Prof. Block-Lieb is the recipient of a 2002 New York State Bar Association President’s Pro Bono Service Attorney Award.

Education

• University of Michigan Law School, JD, cum laude, 1982
• University of Michigan, BA, with honors, 1979

Representative Publications

Works in Progress

Contorting Consumer Financial Protection (with Ted Janger)

Mediating Residential Mortgages in Bankruptcy: Data From the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York (with Ted Janger, Chrystin Ondersma and Ramona Ortega)

Resolution Of The Foreclosure Crisis – When And How Will It End?  (with Ted Janger and Chrystin Ondersma)

Regulating Sovereign Lending (and Borrowing?) (with W. Mark C. Weidemaier)

Ecologies of Lawmaking for Global Markets: A Sociology of International Organizations (with Terence Halliday)

Books

GLOBAL LAWMAKERS: INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS AND THE CRAFTING OF WORLD MARKETS (with Terence C. Halliday)(Cambridge Univ. Press 2017)

CONTEMPORARY ISSUES IN CONSUMER BANKRUPTCY (edited with Johanna Niemi and Wolfram Baeckert)(Peter Lang 2013)

Law Review and Peer Reviewed Publications

Global Scripts in Transnational Legal Orders and Governance, 18 Annu. Rev. Law Soc. Sci. __ (forthcoming 2022)

A Comment on Foohey et al., Steering Loan Modifications Post- Pandemic, 85:2 L. & Contemp. Probs. 101 (forthcoming 2022)

Fit For its Ordinary Purpose: Implied Warranties and Common Law Duties for Consumer Finance Contracts (with Edward Janger), 59:3 Houston Law Review 551 (2022)

A Sociology of International Commercial Law, 1 TRANS. COMMERCIAL L. REV. 48 (2020)

Lenders’ Roles and Responsibilities in Sovereign Debt Markets, 2019 ILL. L. REV. 2019 (with Mark Weidemaier)

Cities as a Source of Consumers’ Financial Empowerment, 34 EMORY BANKR. DEV. J. 387 ( 2018)

Reaching to Restructure Across Borders (Without Over-Reaching), Even After Brexit, 92 AMER. BANKR. L.J. 1 (2018)

The UK and EU Cross-Border Insolvency Recognition: From Empire to Europe to “Going It Alone,” 40 FORDHAM J. INT’L L. 1373 (2017)

Austerity, Debt Overhang and the Design of International Standards on Sovereign, Corporate and Consumer Debt Restructuring, 22 Indiana J. Global Leg. Stud. 249 (2015)(part of Symposium Issue on Law and the Globalization of Austerity)

Turnaround: Reflections on the Present Day Influence of Negotiations on International Bankruptcy at the Fifth Session of the Hague Conference on Private International Law in 1925, 9 Brooklyn J. Corp., Comm. & Fin. L. 1 (2014)(part of Symposium Issue on Choice of Law in Cross-Border Bankruptcy Cases)

Who Governs? Delegations In Global Trade Lawmaking (with Terence Halliday and Josh Pacewicz), 7 Gov. & Reg. 279 (2013)(co-winner of Gov. & Reg. prize for best paper of the year)

Accountability and the New Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection, 7 Brooklyn J. Corp., Fin. & Comm. L. 25 (2012)

What Congress Had to Say: Legislative History as a Rehearsal of Congressional Response to Stern v. Marshall, 86 Am. Bankr. L. J. 55 (2012)

Reforming Regulation in the Markets for Home Loans, 38 Ford. Urb. L. J. 681 (2011)(with Ted Janger)

Rhetorical Legitimation: Global Scripts as Strategic Devices on International Organizations (with Terence Halliday and Bruce Carruthers), 8 Socio-Economic Review 77 (2010)(special issue entitled “Law, Expertise and Legitimacy in Transnational Economic Governance,” edited by Dr. Sigrid Quack, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies)

Consumer Credit and Competition: The Puzzle of Competitive Credit Markets, 6 Euro. Comp. J. 68 (2010)(with Ted Janger)

Demand-Side Gatekeepers in the Market for Home Loans, 82 Temple L. Rev. 465 (2009) (with Ted Janger)

Harmonization and Modernization in UNCITRAL’s Legislative Guide on Insolvency Law, 42 Tex. Int’l L. J. 475 (with Terence Halliday)(2007)

Incrementalisms and Global Lawmaking, 32 Brooklyn Int’l L. J. 851 (with Terence Halliday)(2007)

Consumer Credit Card Use: The Roles of Creditor Disclosure and Anticipated Emotion, 13 J. EXPER. PSYCH. APPL. 32 (2007)(with Richard L. Wiener, Michael L. Holtje, Ryan Winter, Jasone A. Cantone and Karen Gross)

Psychology and the BAPCPA Act of 2005: Enhanced Disclosure and Emotion, 71 MO. L. REV.  1003(2007)(with Richard L. Wiener, Michael L. Holtje, Ryan Winter, Jason A. Cantone and Karen Gross)

The Myth of the Rational Borrower: Rationality, Behaviorism, and the Misguided “Reform” of Bankruptcy Law, 84 TEX. L. REV. 1481 (2006)(with Ted Janger)

Empty Mandate or Opportunity for Innovation? Pre-Petition Credit Counseling and Post-Petition Financial Management Education, 13 A.B.I. L. REV. 549 (2006)(with Karen Gross)

Unwrapping Assumptions:  Applying Social Analytic Jurisprudence to Consumer Bankruptcy Law and Policy, 79 AM. BANKR. L. J. 453 (2005)(with Richard L. Wiener, Karen Gross and Corinne Baron-Donovan)

Debtor Education, Financial Literacy, and Pending Bankruptcy Legislation, 23 BEHAV. SCI. & L. 347 (2005)(with Richard L. Wiener, Corinne Baron-Donovan and Karen Gross)

Financial Literacy Teacher Training: A Multiple-Measure Evaluation, 16 FIN. COUNS. & PLAN. 63 (2005)(with Corinne Baron-Donovan, Richard L. Wiener and Karen Gross)

The Coalition for Consumer Bankruptcy Debtor Education: A Report on its Pilot Program,  21 EMORY BANKR. DEV. J. 203 (2004)(with Corinne Baron-Donovan, Karen Gross and Richard L. Wiener) 

Mandatory Protections and Veiled Punishment: Debtor Education in H.R. 975, the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act, 69 BROOKLYN L. REV. 425 (2003)

e-Reputation: Building Trust in Electronic Commerce, 62 LA. L. REV.  1199 (2002)

Lessons From the Trenches: Debtor Education in Theory and Practice, 7 FORD. J. CORP. & FIN. L. 503 (2002)(co-authored with Karen Gross and Richard Wiener)

Recent Developments: Executory Contracts and Unexpired Leases – Recent Court of Appeals’ Decisions Under 11 U.S.C. §§ 365, 2002 ANN. SURV. BANKR. L. 509 (2002)

The Logic and Limits of Contract Bankruptcy, 2001 ILL. L. REV. 503

The Politics of Privatizing Business Bankruptcy Law, 74 AM. BANKR. L. J. 77 (2000)

Permissive Bankruptcy Abstention, 76 WASH. U. L. Q. 781(1998)

A Humanistic Vision of Bankruptcy Law -- Reviewing Karen Gross, Failure and Forgiveness: Rebalancing the Bankruptcy System, 6 A.B.I. L. REV. 471(1998)

The Cost of a Non-Article III Bankruptcy Court System, 72 AM. BANKR. L. J. 529 (1998)

Empirical Support for an Article III Bankruptcy Court, 1997 ANN. SURV. BANKR. L. 141 (1997)

Congress’s Temptation to Defect: A Political and Economic Theory of Financial Common Pool Resolutions, 39 ARIZ. L. REV. 801 (1997)

The Unsecured Creditor's Bargain -- A Reply, 80 VA. L. REV. 1989 (1994)

The Need for Pro Bono Assistance of Needy Consumer Debtors in Bankruptcy, 2 A.B.I. L. REV. 37 (1994)

The Case Against Supplemental Bankruptcy Jurisdiction: A Statutory, Constitutional and Policy Perspective, 62 FORDHAM L. REV. 721 (1994)

Fishing in Muddy Waters: Clarifying the Common Pool Analogy as Applied to the Standard for Commencement of a Bankruptcy Case, 42 AM. U. L. REV. 337 (1993)

Why Creditors File So Few Involuntary Petitions and Why the Number is Not Too Small, 57 BROOKLYN L. REV. 803 (1991)

Book Chapters

The Macropolitics and Microeconomics of Global Financial Crises: Bankruptcy as a Point of Reference (with Terence Halliday), in Festschrift in Honor of Christoph Paulus (forthcoming 2023)(redacted version of book chapter in Garasic and Bodiroga-Vukobrat)

The Macropolitics and Microeconomics of Global Financial Crises: Bankruptcy as a Point of Reference (with Terence Halliday), forthcoming in Sovereign Insolvency: Possible Legal Solutions (Jasna Garasic and Nadia Bodiroga-Vukobrat, eds)(forthcoming in Springer Press, 2023)

Soft and Hard Strategies: The Role of Business in the Crafting of International Commercial Law, Bankruptcy’s Universal Pragmatist: Festschrift in Honor of Jay Westbrook (John Pottow ed)(University of Michigan Press 2020)

Consumer Financial Protection, Inclusion, and Education: Connecting the Local to the Global (accepted for inclusion in COMPARATIVE URBAN LAW, Nestor Davidson and Nisha Mistry, eds)(forthcoming Ashgate Publications 2017)

Less Is More in Private International Law: Festschrift for Ian Fletcher, 3 Nottingham Insolvency and Bankruptcy Law eJournal  __ (2016), available online at

Contracts and Private Law in the Emerging Ecology of International Lawmaking (with Terence Halliday)(in CENTURY CONTRACTING BEYOND BORDERS: THE LAW OF INTERNATIONAL MARKETS IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY, Gregoire Mallard and Jerome Sgard eds)(Cambridge Univ. Press 2016)(presented at SciencesPo in December 2013; presented at Law & Society, International Academy of Commercial and Consumer Law and at SASE, in May and July 2014)

The Macropolitics and Microeconomics of Global Financial Crises: Bankruptcy as a Point of Reference (with Terence Halliday), forthcoming in SOVEREIGN INSOLVENCY: POSSIBLE LEGAL SOLUTIONS (Jasna Garasic and Nadia Bodiroga-Vukobrat, eds)(accepted for publication in Springer Press, 2014)

Settling and Concordance: Two Case Studies in Global Commercial Law (with Terence Halliday), TRANSNATIONAL LEGAL ORDERS (Terence Halliday and Gregory Shaffer, eds.)(Oxford University Press, 2015)

Global Duelists: The Recursive Politics of the Text in International Trade Law (with Terence Halliday), in SOCIO-LEGAL APPROACHES TO INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC LAW: TEST, CONTEXT, SUBTEXT (Amanda Perry-Kessaris ed.)(Routlege 2012)

Missing Debtors: National Lawmaking and Global Norm-Making of Corporate Bankruptcy Regimes (with Terence Halliday and Bruce Carruthers), in A DEBTOR WORLD (Ralph Brubaker ed., Oxford Univ. Press 2012)

The Limits of Enhanced Disclosure in Bankruptcy Law: Anticipated and Experienced Emotion (with Richard L. Wiener, Jason A. Cantone and Michael Holtje), in A DEBTOR WORLD (Ralph Brubaker ed., Oxford Univ. Press 2012)

Representing the Interests of Unsecured Creditors: A Comparative Look at UNCITRAL'S Legislative Guide on Insolvency Law, forthcoming in INTERNATIONAL INSOLVENCY LAW: REFORMS AND CHALLENGES (P.J. Omar, ed., Ashgate)(with Juraj Alexander & Evgeny Kovalenko)

Disclosure as an Imperfect Means for Addressing Overindebtedness: An Empirical Assessment of Comparative Approaches (with Richard L. Wiener, Jason Cantone and Michael Holtje), in CONSUMER CREDIT, OVER-INDEBTEDNESS AND BANKRUPTCY: NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL DIMENSIONS (William Whitford, Iain Ramsay and Johanna Niemi-Kiesilainen eds; Hart Publishing 2009)

Attaining the Global Standard (with Terence Halliday and Bruce Carruthers), in BANKRUPT: LAWMAKING AND SYSTEMIC FINANCIAL CRISIS (Terence Hallliday and Bruce Carruthers; Stanford Univ. Press 2009)

Consumer Bankruptcy and the Heuristic Borrower (with Ted Janger), in LAW AND PSYCHOLOGY (Michael Freeman ed; Cambridge Univ. Press 2006)

Other Publications: Blogs, Research Papers, Reports, etc.

Housing Insecurity in a Post-Pandemic World, College Columns (May 2021)(publication of American College of Bankruptcy)

Lending a Helping Hand? College Columns (May 2020)(publication of American College of Bankruptcy)

Reflections on the Dark Side, CREDITSLIPS, http://www.creditslips.org/creditslips/2014/04/reflections-on-the-dark-side.htm (April 2, 2014)

A Dark Side to the Trustee’s Strong Arm Powers, CREDITSLIPS, http://www.creditslips.org/creditslips/2014/03/conventional-wisdom-views-bankruptcy-as-a-place-that-protects-homeowners-and-homeownership-one-of-the-primary-reasons-chapte.html (March 11, 2014)

1924 and Today, CREDITSLIPS, http://www.creditslips.org/creditslips/2014/03/1924-and-today.html (March 7, 2014)

UFTA Now UVTA, CREDITSLIPS, http://www.creditslips.org/creditslips/2014/03/ufta-now-the-uvta.html (March 6, 2014)

Some Reflections on the “Big Club Behind the Door,” CREDITSLIPS, http://www.creditslips.org/creditslips/2014/03/autonomous-administrative-agencies-are-anathema-to-certain-sorts-of-lawmakers-eg-those-who-think-that-we-are-always-bette.html (March 5, 2014)

Brooklyn Goes Global, CREDITSLIPS, http://www.creditslips.org/creditslips/2014/03/brooklyn-goes-global.html (March 4, 2014)

Off With Their Heads, CREDITSLIPS, http://www.creditslips.org/creditslips/2014/03/off-with-their-heads.html (March 3, 2014)

CFPB Possesses Unique Accountability Structure, REGBLOG, https://www.law.upenn.edu/blogs/regblog/2013/06/03-block-lieb-cfpb-accountability.html (June 3, 2013)

A Conversation on Financial Literacy, Fordham L. Rev. Res Gestae (2012)(with Andrea Boyack)

Indirect Regulation: The Political Economy of the Credit Counseling Industry (with David Friedman), Fordham Law Legal Studies Research Paper (2007)

Legitimation and Global Lawmaking, Fordham Law Legal Studies Research Paper No. 952492 (December 2006), available online at http://ssrn.com/abstract=952492 (with Terence Halliday)

Psychology and BAPCPA: Does Greater Disclosure Affect Consumer Credit Behavior? 26 AUG. ABI J. 20 (Jan. 2007)(with Michael Holtje, Jason A. Cantone, Richard L. Wiener, Ryan J. Winter and Karen Gross)

Assessing the Constitutionality of Proposed Reforms to the Bankruptcy Appellate Process, Appendix C to Judith A. McKenna & Elizabeth C. Wiggins, Alternative Structures for Bankruptcy Appeals, 76 AM. BANKR. L. J. 625 (2002)(appendix C appears at page 690)

Assessing the Constitutionality of Proposed Reforms to the Bankruptcy Appellate Process, Appendix C to Judith A. McKenna & Elizabeth C. Wiggins, ALTERNATIVE STRUCTURES FOR BANKRUPTCY APPEALS (2000).

Symposium on The Role of Forgiveness in the Law, The Importance of Forgiveness to Consumer Bankruptcy Law, 27 FORD. URB. L. J. 1408-14 (2000).

Contributing editor, NORTON BANKRUPTCY LAW AND PRACTICE, Jury Trials in Bankruptcy Courts (Ch. 18), Bankruptcy Appeals (Ch. 17), Trustees and Examiners (Ch. 30)(2005).

Bankruptcy Appellate Procedure, Ch. 3 in BANKRUPTCY LITIGATION MANUAL, M. Cook ed. (Prentice Hall Law & Business 2005).

Chapter 11 Cases, CH. 3 IN NJICLE BANKRUPTCY MANUAL (revised ed. 1996).

Using Legislative History to Interpret Bankruptcy Statutes, Ch. 2 in BANKRUPTCY PRACTICE AND STRATEGY, Alan N. Resnick ed. (Warren, Gorham & Lamont 1987).

Recent Developments: Bankruptcy Appeals, ANN. SURV. BANKR. L. 713 (1987, 1986, 1985).