Elizabeth Warren

Elizabeth Warren
Chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel
Appointed by	Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid
Leo Gottlieb Professor of Law, Harvard Law School
Born	June 22, 1949 (1949-06-22) (age 60) Oklahoma
Residence	Cambridge, MA
Alma mater	University of Houston, Rutgers School of Law
Profession	Lawyer, Law school professor, Appointed official
Website	[1]

Elizabeth Warren (born 1949) is the Leo Gottlieb Professor of Law at Harvard Law School -- where she teaches contract law, bankruptcy, and commercial law -- and has devoted much of the past three decades to studying the economics of middle class families. In the wake of the 2008-9 financial crisis, she became the chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel created to oversee the U.S. banking bailout (formally known as the Troubled Assets Relief Program). In that role, she has provided a critical check on the U.S. Department of the Treasury and has been a leading advocate for accountability and transparency. In 2007, she also first developed the idea to create a new Consumer Financial Protection Agency, which President Barack Obama has advocated and Congress is now considering.^[1] In May 2009, Warren was named one of Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential People in the World.^[2] In December 2009, the Boston Globe named Warren the Bostonian of the Year.^[3]

Personal

Warren was born and raised in Oklahoma, where she was a state champion debater. She graduated from the University of Houston with a B.S. in 1970 and received her J.D. in 1976 from Rutgers Law—Newark, where she served as an Editor to the Rutgers Law Review.

Warren appeared in the documentary film Maxed Out in 2006, has appeared several times on Dr. Phil to talk about money and families, has been a guest on the Daily Show, is interviewed frequently on cable news networks, and appears in Michael Moore's Capitalism: A Love Story.

From 2005-2008, Warren and her law students wrote a blog called Warren Reports, part of Josh Marshall's TPMCafe.

Warren is married to Bruce Mann, a legal historian and law professor also at Harvard Law School. She has a daughter, Amelia Warren Tyagi, with whom she has coauthored two books and several articles, and a son, Alexander Warren.

She joined Harvard Law School in 1992 as the Robert Braucher Visiting Professor of Commercial Law. Prior to Harvard, she was the William A. Schnader Professor of Commercial Law at University of Pennsylvania School of Law and also taught at the University of Texas School of Law, University of Houston Law Center, University of Michigan and Rutgers Law School.

Academic work

In addition to writing more than 100 scholarly articles and six academic books, Warren has written best-selling books and a number of widely read articles. Her most recent book, coauthored with her daughter, is All Your Worth: The Ultimate Lifetime Money Plan.

Warren is also the co-author (with Tyagi) of The Two-Income Trap: Why Middle-Class Mothers and Fathers Are Going Broke (Basic, 2003) (ISBN 0-465-09082-6). Warren and Tyagi point out that a fully employed worker today earns less inflation-adjusted income than a fully employed worker did 30 years ago. To increase their income, families have sent a second parent into the workforce. Although families spend less today on clothing, appliances, and other consumption, the costs of core expenses like mortgages, health care, transportation, child care, and taxes have increased dramatically. The result is that, even with two income earners, families no longer save and have incurred greater and greater debt.

In an article in the New York Times, Jeff Madrick said of Warren's book:

In an article in Time magazine by Maryanna Murray Buechner, "Parent Trap" (subtitled "Want to go bust? Have a kid. Educate same. Why the middle class never had it so bad"), Buechner said of Warren's book:

Law professor Todd Zywicki criticized the book in the Wall Street Journal for failing to account for the effect of higher taxes; according to Warren and Tyagi's own numbers, "the change in the tax obligation between the [1970s and the 2000s] is substantially greater than the change in mortgage, automobile expenses and health-insurance costs combined."^[6] Richard Kaplan, a tax law professor, rebutted, noting that "Mr. Zywikici's analysis of relative tax burdens make a leaping conclusion that his numbers do not support," but acknowledging that the total tax burden (income, sales, state, local, federal) increased -- a point that Warren and Tyagi also make in their book.^[7]

In 2005, Dr. David Himmelstein and Warren published a study on bankruptcy and medical bills,^[8] which claimed that half of all families filing for bankruptcy did so in the aftermath of a serious medical problem. The finding was particularly noteworthy because 75% of those who fit that description had medical insurance.^[9] This study was widely cited, although critics from the insurance industry argued that the criteria used were too loose.^[10]. In 2007, the team repeated the study, using more robust criteria. They concluded that the proportion of medical bankruptcies had increased to 62% of personal bankruptcies and that, once again, about three-quarters of those families had health insurance at the onset of their medical problems.

Warren has been recognized for her dynamic teaching style. In 2009, Warren became the first professor in Harvard's history to win the law school's teaching award twice. The Sacks-Freund Teaching Award was voted on by the graduating class in honor of "her teaching ability, openness to student concerns, and contributions to student life at Harvard." Warren also has won awards from her students at the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Michigan, and the University of Houston Law Center.

TARP oversight

On November 14, 2008, Ms. Warren was appointed by United States Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to chair the five-member Congressional Oversight Panel created to oversee the implementation of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act.^[11] The Panel writes monthly oversight reports, which are available at cop.senate.gov. Reports have evaluated the Treasury Department’s efforts to mitigate foreclosures, clear toxic assets from the balance sheets of banks, increase consumer and small business lending, and stress test the banks.

Warren has testified several times before House and the Senate committees on financial issues, such as the Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility.^[12]

The National Law Journal has repeatedly named Professor Warren as one of the fifty most influential female lawyers,^[13] and she has been recognized for her work by SmartMoney magazine, Money magazine, and Law Dragon.^{[citation needed]}

In 2009, the Women's Bar Association of Massachusetts honored her with the Leila J. Robinson Award.

Warren is a member of the FDIC's Committee on Economic Inclusion and the Executive Council of the National Bankruptcy Conference. She is the former Vice-President of the American Law Institute and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She served as the Chief Adviser to the National Bankruptcy Review Commission.

References

External links

• Wall Street Critic Inspired New Consumer-Protection Agency, Wall Street Journal
• Warren Winning Means You Won't Sell It If You Can't Explain It, Bloomberg
• In fight over credit rules, she wields a plan, Boston Globe
• The TARP Queen: Why we should all bow before Elizabeth Warren (even if you've never heard of her), Slate
• Bank Buster, Mother Jones
• The Debt Crusader: Inspired by Dr. Phil, Harvard's Elizabeth Warren has gone to D.C. to change the way America borrows, Newsweek
• Elizabeth Warren on the Economy, NOW on PBS
• Video: Elizabeth Warren, New Yorker, Nov. 16, 2009
• Elizabeth Warren on MSNBC's Morning Joe - Nov. 6, 2009
• Interview with Yahoo! Finance, Oct. 16, 2009
• Voices of Power Video: Elizabeth Warren, Washington Post, Oct. 8, 2009
• Elizabeth Warren on Charlie Rose – May 11, 2009
• Interview with Elizabeth Warren on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart on 2009-04-15 (embedded video and full transcript)
• Interview with Elizabeth Warren from Frontline
• Elizabeth Warren on MSNBC's Morning Joe on 2009-04-15
• Elizabeth Warren on NPR link to full interview for show of 2009-05-08
• Warren, Elizabeth; Tyagi, Amelia Warren (2005). All Your Worth: The Ultimate Lifetime Money Plan. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 074326987X. 
• Professor Elizabeth Warren speaks about the Consumer Financial Protection Agency
• UCTV programs with Elizabeth Warren
  • The Coming Collapse of the Middle Class: Higher Risks, Lower Rewards, and a Shrinking Safety Net
  • Conversations with History: Law, Politics, and the Coming Collapse of the Middle Class with Elizabeth Warren
• Elizabeth Warren faculty directory listing at Harvard Law School's website
• Elizabeth Warren's bibliography