When firms contracting with consumers make mistakes, people get hurt. Inaccurate billing, misapplied payments, and similar problems push lucky consumers into kafkaesqe customer-service queues and unlucky ones off the financial cliff. Despite significant regulatory interventions, firms contracting with consumers continue to struggle to accurately bill customers, update accounts, and process payments. Firms largely rely on technology, especially databases and software, to discharge these servicing obligations. This technology must accommodate firms’ innovations in their contracts, shifting regulations, and unpredictable consumer behavior. Given the complexity of servicing, the technology will inevitably produce mistakes even when firms invest in technology. When firms skimp on their servicing technology, errors that harm consumers become even more likely. And even if it were possible to build perfect servicing technology, the costs that firms would pass on to consumers may outweigh the benefits. Then challenge, then, is how to reduce customer harm, accepting that perfect servicing is neither possible nor desirable.

This Article argues that structural improvements to consumer contracts can make them more resilient to errors. Far from being new, these structural improvements have long been recognized in contract theory. But these theoretical insights have not been applied to modern consumer financial contracts. Specifically, modularity and formalities improve resilience by mitigating the complexity of servicing, regulation, and consumer behavior. While mitigating complexity may reduce errors ex ante, the bigger pay-off is in simplifying customer redress if and when errors occur. Intervening in the structure of consumer financial contracts is an underappreciated tool for achieving substantive consumer protection.

Danielle D'Onfro

Duke Law Journal

The first issue of what was to become the Duke Law Journal was published in March 1951 as the Duke Bar Journal. Created to provide a medium for student expression, the Duke Bar Journal consisted entirely of student-written and student-edited work until 1953, when it began publishing faculty contributions. To reflect the inclusion of faculty scholarship, the Duke Bar Journal became the Duke Law Journal in 1957. In 1969, the Journal published its inaugural Administrative Law Symposium issue, a tradition that continues today.    Volume 1 of the Duke Bar Journal spanned two issues and 259 pages. In 1959, the Journal grew to four issues and 649 pages, growing again in 1970 to six issues and 1263 pages. Today, the Duke Law Journal publishes eight issues per volume. Our staff is committed to the purpose set forth in our constitution: to publish legal writing of superior quality. We seek to publish a collection of outstanding scholarship from established legal writers, up-and-coming authors, and our own student editors.

The first issue of the Duke Law Journal was published in March 1951 under the name Duke Bar Journal. It was created to provide a platform for student expression, consisting entirely of student-written and student-edited work until 1953, when faculty contributions were included. To reflect the inclusion of faculty scholarship, the Duke Bar Journal was renamed the Duke Law Journal in 1957. In 1969, the Journal published its inaugural Administrative Law Symposium issue, a tradition that continues today. Volume 1 of the Duke Bar Journal spanned two issues and 259 pages. By 1959, the Journal had grown to four issues and 649 pages, and in 1970 it expanded again to six issues and 1263 pages. Today, the Duke Law Journal publishes eight issues per volume. Our staff is committed to the purpose set forth in our constitution: to publish legal writing of superior quality. We aim to present a collection of outstanding scholarship from established legal writers, emerging authors, and our own student editors.

《Duke Law Journal》的第一期于1951年3月出版，最初名为《Duke Bar Journal》。该期刊旨在为学生提供表达的平台，最初完全由学生撰写和编辑，直到1953年开始接受教师的投稿。为了反映教师学术贡献的纳入，《Duke Bar Journal》于1957年更名为《Duke Law Journal》。1969年，期刊首次出版行政法研讨会特刊，这一传统至今仍在延续。第一卷的《Duke Bar Journal》包含两个期刊，共259页。1959年，期刊增至四期，649页；1970年再次增长至六期，1263页。如今，《Duke Law Journal》每卷出版八期。我们的团队致力于实现宪法中设定的目标：出版高质量的法律写作。我们希望汇集来自成熟法律作家、崭露头角的作者以及我们自己的学生编辑的杰出学术作品。

Category	Quartile
社会学	2
社会学, 法学	2

Error-Resilient Consumer Contracts

ivySCI AI Smartly Parses PDF, Answers Researchers' Questions, and Helps You Understand Papers in Seconds

Journal Info