UConn Law Professor To Oversee Mortgages In Financial Bureau

A prominent UConn law professor has been tapped to advise the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, founded under the Dodd-Frank financial reform act. As WNPR’s Harriet Jones reports, Patricia McCoy will be working on mortgages.

Professor Patricia McCoy is the director of UConn law school’s Insurance Law Center and an expert on consumer finance issues. She’s been a prominent commentator on the foreclosure crisis, and an advocate of protecting the rights of homeowners who were the victims of predatory lending. McCoy has just begun to work part time in Washington, DC as the efforts to set up the new bureau get underway. 

Although her official job title hasn’t yet been specified, the Bureau says it will tap her expertise on mortgage lending, as it mulls ways to protect consumers from mortgage fraud. She’s expected to begin full-time duties at the Bureau in January.

McCoy gave testimony to Congress during the progress of the financial reform bill, and was also consulted by one of the bill’s authors, Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd. More rigorous consumer protection measures were a central aspect of the bill, and the bureau is working to a one-year deadline as it tries to craft rules to make mortgage disclosure language more transparent.

For WNPR, I'm Harriet Jones.