Tag Archives: research director

Structured Finance Journal Launch

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I am excited to be part of the launch of the Structured Finance Journal (SFJ), a double-blind, peer-reviewed publication dedicated to advancing the practices within the structured fixed-income markets. The press release continues,

SFJ is more than just a platform for publishing research—it is a collaborative effort led by an esteemed editorial board and guided by a distinguished advisory council, ensuring the highest quality and relevance of the work we publish.

In tribute to the highly respected but now defunct Journal of Structured Finance, formerly edited by Mark Adelson, we believe in the power of original research to drive practical applications and foster innovation in the field. SFJ is designed for professionals who are dedicated to contributing valuable insights that will help shape the industry’s future.

We invite submissions from industry experts and academics alike. If you have research that offers fresh insights and practical implications, we want to hear from you. Manuscripts should be between 2,500 and 3,500 words, excluding abstracts and references, and must be original work that has not been previously published or is under consideration elsewhere.

In line with our commitment to integrity and transparency, any use of AI tools in your manuscript should be limited to mechanical tasks like editing or citation management, with full disclosure required. Our strict guidelines ensure that only high-quality, relevant, and ethically produced research is featured in the journal.

Submissions must adhere to the Chicago Manual of Style (CMS) for formatting, with specific requirements for typography and content organization. We encourage authors to carefully structure their work, starting with a clear and concise title and abstract, followed by a compelling introduction, organized headings, and a well-rounded conclusion. Exhibits should be properly sourced, and permissions obtained for any previously published material. Details may be found on our online submissions platform.

Join us in advancing the structured finance industry by sharing your expertise and research. Submit your manuscript today and contribute to the growing body of knowledge that SFJ proudly supports. Please contact Elen Callahan at elen.callahan@structuredfinance.org with your questions and interest.

I am excited to join Elen Callahan and the other members of the Editorial Board in this venture:

Mark Adelson, Independent Consultant Content Director, Portfolio Management Research

William Black, Founder and Principal, Black Analytics

Nicole Byrns, Founder and Principal, Dumar Capital

Chun Lin, Managing Director and Head of U.S. Residential Mortgage Modeling, Bank of America

Debra Lofano, Partner, Alston & Bird LLP

Phillip Millman, Advisor, Federal Housing Finance Agency

Tim O’Neil, Managing Director and Head of Canadian Structured Finance, Morningstar DBRS

David Reiss, Clinical Professor of Law & Research Director of the Blassberg-Rice Center for Entrepreneurship Law, Cornell Law School & Cornell Tech

Jeff Schwartz, CFA, Securitized Products Investor

Cornell Law Set to Launch First NYC-Based Law Clinic

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The Cornell Daily Sun just ran an article about the expansion of Cornell Law School’s Entrepreneurship Law Clinic to the Cornell Tech campus in NYC, where I am now located:

Cornell Law School is set to launch its first law clinic in the Big Apple.

Beginning in January 2025, the Entrepreneurship Law Clinic will expand from Ithaca to the Cornell Tech campus on Roosevelt Island.

Through the Entrepreneurship Law Clinic, law students provide pro-bono legal services to emerging businesses, entrepreneurs and startups in the Ithaca area and under the guidance of law school faculty.

Students assist with business formation, hiring and employment, intellectual property management, commercial contracts and public service initiatives, such as aiding small businesses during COVID-19.

All of the law school’s other clinics are located in Ithaca, where the law school is based.

Established in 2018, the Entrepreneurship Law Clinic stands as the law school’s only transactional clinic, which means students gain hands-on legal experience in business.

The law school received a donation from Franci Blassberg ’75 J.D. ’77 and Joseph Rice III in 2023, which helped establish the Blassberg-Rice Center for Entrepreneurship Law. The center will use the funding to expand the Entrepreneurship Law Clinic to New York City.

Prof. Celia Bigoness, law, is the founding director of the Blassberg-Rice Center and the Entrepreneurship Law Clinic. Bigoness emphasized the benefits of the new location.

“Law clinics serve two principal purposes, and our expansion to NYC serves both purposes … — providing pro-bono legal services and hands-on clinical training experience for students,” Bigoness stated to The Sun.

“The clinic has been hugely successful — so successful that its capacity isn’t nearly enough to satisfy student demand,” Cornell Law Dean Jens David Ohlin wrote to The Sun. “This expansion will allow us to scale the program while keeping the intensive, hands-on approach that makes it so effective.”

Law students may join the clinic in their second or third years and often stay for the remainder of their degrees.

Kathleen Joo J.D. ’23, participated in the Entrepreneurship Law Clinic in her second and third years of law school and is now an associate at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP. She believes that the expansion will advance the clinic.

“While I was a student there, … [the clinic] was the closest experience we could get to full-time work,” Joo said. “I imagine the expansion also means that students will get access to a greater variety of clients and projects.”

With this development, students will also be able to spend a semester at Cornell Tech with the J.D. Program in Information and Technology Law.

The law school also hired its second full-time clinical instructor to facilitate the expansion.

Prof. David Reiss joined the law school in July and is the research director of the Blassberg-Rice Center for Entrepreneurship Law. He will teach at the clinic’s New York City location and Bigoness will continue teaching at its Ithaca location.

Reiss previously taught at Brooklyn Law School where he founded its Community Development Clinic. He explained that he is enthusiastic to apply his experiences to the clinic.

“I have represented entrepreneurs and social entrepreneurs over the course of my legal career, first in practice and then as a director of a law clinic, and can’t wait to get started at the [Cornell] Tech campus,” Reiss said.

Tech Entrepreneurship Clinic in NYC

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Cornell has just formally announced the creation of its first NYC law clinic, a branch of the law school’s Entrepreneurship Law Clinic, to be located on the Cornell Tech campus. You can read more here.

 

NYC Rent Guidelines Board Final Vote Interview

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I was interviewed on WCBS AM’s Drive Time about the vote of the New York City Rent Guidelines Board. Click here to hear it.

NYSBA Task Force on the Digital Economy (and the Real Economy)

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The New York Law Journal ran a story on the NYSBA’s new Task Force on Emerging Digital Finance and Currency. The NYSBA Press Release is here. Joseph Bizub, my co-author, and I are members of the Task Force. We are writing about the impact of fintech on real estate investment. The Press Release reads:

The New York State Bar Association has launched a task force to make recommendations on how New York should regulate virtual currencies and digital assets and advise the association what the new technology can do for its operations.

“The rapid growth of the metaverse/Web3 and the digital economy present a confluence of issues for lawyers,” said President Sherry Levin Wallach. “At the same time, this technology has the power to significantly change the way we do business, bank, and interact both personally and professionally. It’s important that we are in front of the issues and able to engage productively in this quickly evolving space.”

The task force will work to educate NYSBA members and the legal community about the impact of the digital economy and the legal issues that are likely to arise in representation of clients. It will also evaluate legislative and regulatory proposals and explore how the metaverse and Web3 can benefit the legal profession and bar associations.

“We are already seeing the effects of this trillion-dollar industry in many areas of practice including entertainment, business, intellectual property, tax, criminal and environmental law and trusts and estates,” Levin Wallach said. “The Task Force on Emerging Digital Finance and Currency will ensure that the New York State Bar Association has a voice in this innovative and emerging field.”

Jacqueline J. Drohan, partner at Drohan Lee, and Dana V. Syracuse, co-chair of Perkins Coie’s Fintech Industry Group, will co-chair the task force. The vice chair will be Dr. Carlos Mauricio Sakata Mirandola, CMSquare, São Paulo, Brazil. Marc Beckman, founding partner of DMA United, New York, NY, and Nancy Chanin, who oversees business development at DMA United, will be consultants to the task force.

New York State Bar Association President-Elect Richard C. Lewis will be the task force’s liaison to the association’s Executive Committee. Joseph Bizub and Dina Khedr of Brooklyn Law School will be law student members of the task force.

The members of the task force include:

Alyssa Barreiro, head of fiduciary risk, BNY Mellon, Binghamton, NY

Joshua Lee Boehm, partner, Perkins Coie, Phoenix, AZ

Julie T. Houth, staff attorney, Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd, San Diego, CA

Luca CM Melchionna, managing member, Melchionna, New York, NY

John W. R. Murray, partner, Foley Hoag, New York, NY

Jeffrey D. Neuburger, head of Blockchain group, Proskauer Rose; New York, NY

Rory J. Radding, partner, Mauriel Kapouytian Woods, New York, NY

David J. Reiss, professor of law and research director, Brooklyn Law School Center for Urban Business Entrepreneurship, New York, NY

Jason Schwartz, tax partner and co-head of Digital Assets and Blockchain Practice, Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson, Washington, DC

Robyn T. Williams, associate, Devlin Law Firm, Cleveland, OH

Housing in the Trump Era

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The Real Estate Transactions Section of the American Association of Law Schools has issued the following Call for Papers:

Access + Opportunity + Choice: Housing Capital, Equity, and Market Regulation in the Trump Era

Program Description:

The year 2018 marks the 10th anniversary of the 2008 housing crisis—an event described as the most significant financial and economic upheaval since the Great Depression. This year is also the 50th anniversary of the Fair Housing Act, which upended many decades of overt housing discrimination. Both events remind us of the significant role that housing has played in the American story—both for good and for bad.

Of the many aspects of financial reform that followed 2008, much of the housing finance-related work was centered around mortgage loan origination and creating incentives and rules dealing with underwriting and the risk of moral hazard. Some of these reforms include the creation of the qualified mortgage safe-harbor and the skin-in-the-game risk retention rules. But when it came to the secondary mortgage market, little significant reform was undertaken. The only government action of any serious importance related to the federal government—through the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA)—taking over control of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. This major government intervention into the workings of the country’s two mortgage giants yielded takings lawsuits, an outcry from shareholders, and the decimation of the capital reserves of both companies. Despite Fannie and Freddie having both paid back all the bailout funds given to them, the conservatorship remains in place to this day.

In the area of fair housing, the past several years saw the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs v. Inclusive Communities case whereby the U.S. Supreme Court upheld (and narrowed the scope of) the disparate impact theory under the Fair Housing Act. We also saw efforts aimed at reducing geographic concentrations of affordable housing through the Obama administration’s promulgation of the affirmatively furthering fair housing rule.

Yet, meaningful housing reform remains elusive. None of the major candidates in the most recent presidential election meaningfully addressed the issue in their policy platforms, and a lack of movement in resolving the Fannie/Freddie conservatorship is viewed as a major failure of the Obama administration. Additionally, housing segregation and access to affordable mortgage credit continues to plague the American economy.

In recent months, the topics of housing finance reform and providing Americans with credit (including mortgage credit) choices have been a point of focus on Capitol Hill and in the Trump White House. Will these conservations result in meaningful legislation or changes in regulatory approaches in these areas? Will programs like the low-income-housing tax credit, the CFPB’s mandatory underwriting requirements, public housing subsidies, and the government’s role in guaranteeing and securitizing mortgage loans significantly change? Where are points of possible agreement between the country’s two major parties in this area and what kinds of compromises can be made?

Call for Papers:

The Real Estate Transactions Section looks to explore these and related issues in its 2019 AALS panel program titled: “Access and Opportunity: Housing Capital, Equity, and Market Regulation in the Trump Era.” The Section invites the submission of abstracts or full papers dealing broadly with issues related to real estate finance, the secondary mortgage market, fair housing, access to mortgage credit, mortgage lending discrimination, and the future of mortgage finance. There is no formal paper requirement associated with participation on the panel, but preference will be given to those submissions that demonstrate novel scholarly insights that have been substantially developed. Untenured scholars in particular are encouraged to submit their work. Please email your submissions to Chris Odinet at codinet@sulc.edu by Friday, August 3, 2018. The selection results will be announced in early September 2018. In additional to confirmed speakers, the Section anticipates selecting two to three papers from the call.

Confirmed Speakers:

Rigel C. Oliveri, Isabelle Wade and Paul C. Lyda Professor of Law, University of Missouri School of Law

Todd J. Zywicki, Foundation Professor of Law, George Mason University Antonin Scalia Law School

David Reiss, Professor of Law and Research Director for the Center for Urban Business Entrepreneurship, Brooklyn Law School

Eligibility:

Per AALS rules, only full-time faculty members of AALS member law schools are eligible to submit a paper/abstract to Section calls for papers. Faculty at fee-paid law schools, foreign faculty, adjunct and visiting faculty (without a full-time position at an AALS member law school), graduate students, fellows, and non-law school faculty are not eligible to submit.

All panelists, including speakers selected from this Call for Papers, are responsible for paying their own annual meeting registration fee and travel expenses.

What Is a HUD Foreclosure?

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Mike Licht

Realtor.com quoted me in What Is a HUD Foreclosure? A Home That’s Below Market Value. It reads,

“Foreclosure” is a scary word with a simple definition: It’s the process of a lender attempting to recoup the balance owed on a loan after the homeowner fails to pay the mortgage. Mortgage lenders can be banks, private institutions, or the Federal Housing Administration. The FHA is the world’s largest insurer of mortgages; FHA loans are managed by the Department of Housing and Urban Development. So any foreclosed house that was purchased with an FHA loan is called a HUD foreclosure. But what exactly is a HUD foreclosure?

What is HUD?

HUD is a federal agency with the mission to help low-income and first-time home buyers. Through mortgage assistance and subsidized housing, it helps make the dream of owning a home a reality for many Americans.

A major division of HUD is the FHA, which is the world’s largest insurer of mortgages.

“A HUD foreclosure is the foreclosure of a loan that was insured by the FHA,” says David Reiss, professor of law and research director at the Center for Urban Business Entrepreneurship
 at Brooklyn Law School
.

When a homeowner defaults on this government-backed loan, HUD pays off the mortgage and becomes the property’s de facto owner. To recoup financial losses, HUD then puts the house on the market.

The benefit of buying a HUD foreclosure

The upside for bargain home hunters is that HUD-owned properties are usually sold well below market value.

While anyone can buy a HUD home, “the agency has a special program for teachers, police officers, firefighters, and EMS personnel called the Good Neighbor Next Door program,” says Reiss.

This program allows people in those professions to purchase a HUD property at a whooping 50% discount if it’s in a “revitalization area” and the owner occupies it for three years. Revitalization areas are neighborhoods with very low income, low homeownership, or a high concentration of foreclosed homes.

How to buy a HUD foreclosure

HUD foreclosures are not sold in the typical manner, according to Reiss. Instead of open houses and offer letters, he explains, HUD foreclosures are sold through a bidding process that favors owner-occupants (people who actually want to live in the house) over investors by giving them priority in bidding.

Prospective owners working with a real estate agent authorized to sell HUD property submit bids but have no idea what the other bids are. If the property fails to sell to an owner-occupant, the HUD foreclosure is then open to investors.

How to find a HUD foreclosure

According to Reiss, HUD maintains the HUD Home Store, an online database that lists all its foreclosures. And unlike some foreclosed properties that may have liens (a notice attached to your property that means you owe a creditor money), HUD homes are for sale lien-free.