About the Authors

Carolyn Carter, author, is the Deputy Director at NCLC (previously serving as Director of Advocacy). She has specialized in consumer law issues for over 35 years. From 1974 to 1986 she worked for the Legal Aid Society of Cleveland, first as a staff attorney and later as law reform director. From 1986 to 1999 she was co-director of a legal services program in Pennsylvania. She was the 1992 recipient of NCLC’s Vern Countryman Award. She is admitted to the Pennsylvania bar. From 2005 to 2007 she was a member of the Federal Reserve Board’s Consumer Advisory Council. She is a graduate of Brown University and Yale Law School. She is co-author of NCLC’s Truth in Lending, Unfair and Deceptive Acts and Practices, Collection Actions and Consumer Warranty Law, and is a contributor to a number of other NCLC treatises.

Jon Sheldon, author, has been a staff attorney with NCLC for over 40 years. Jon has a focus on state unfair and deceptive trade practices statutes, automobile leasing, automobile fraud, collection actions, arbitration issues, and oversees NCLC’s publications program. Prior to joining NCLC, he was a staff attorney with the Division of Special Projects within the Federal Trade Commission in Washington, DC. He is co-author of a number of NCLC publications including Unfair and Deceptive Acts and Practices, Automobile Fraud, Federal Deception Law, Consumer Warranty Law, Collection Actions, and Consumer Credit Regulation, and is a contributing author for a number of other NCLC treatises.

Abby Shafroth, contributing author, is a staff attorney at the NCLC and focuses on student loan and for-profit school issues, and on the intersection of criminal and consumer law. She has represented the interests of students and legal assistance organizations on federal and state policy committees, and is the co-author of two reports in the Confronting Criminal Justice Debt series: The Urgent Need for Reform and A Guide for Litigation. She is also an author of the NCLC’s Student Loan Law and Collection Actions treatises. Prior to joining NCLC, Abby litigated civil rights and employment class and collective actions at Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC in Washington, D.C., worked as an attorney at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, and served as a law clerk to the Honorable Judge Richard A. Paez of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Abby is a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School.

Ariel Nelson, contributing author, is a staff attorney at the NCLC focusing on credit and background check reporting and criminal justice debt issues. She is the author of the report Broken Records Redux: How Errors by Criminal Background Check Companies Continue to Harm Consumers Seeking Jobs and Housing; a co-author of the Commercialized (In)Justice Litigation Guide: Applying Consumer Laws to Commercial Bail, Prison Retail, and Private Debt Collection; and a contributing author of NCLC’s Fair Credit Reporting and Collection Actions treatises. Previously, Ariel litigated administrative and environmental law cases as a staff attorney/clinical teaching fellow at Georgetown University Law Center. She also served as a law clerk to the Honorable Judge David O. Carter of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California and to the Honorable Judge Dorothy W. Nelson of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. She holds a B.A. from the University of California, Berkeley and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. She is admitted to practice law in Massachusetts, California, and the District of Columbia.

Jeremiah Battle, Jr., contributing author, is a staff attorney, author of NCLC’s Credit Discrimination, and a contributor to NCLC’s Consumer Credit Regulation, Collection Actions, Repossessions, Foreclosure Prevention Counseling, and Unfair and Deceptive Acts and Practices. Previously, he was a staff attorney with Northeast New Jersey Legal Services where he focused on predatory mortgage lending and public benefits cases, and managing attorney with New Jersey Protection and Advocacy, Inc., (now Disability Rights New Jersey) where he concentrated on disability rights issues. He earned a B.A. with high honors from Rutgers University and a J.D. from Rutgers School of Law – Newark.

Jenifer M. Bosco, contributing author, is a staff attorney at NCLC who focuses on two broad areas: energy and utility issues that affect low-income consumers, and medical debt. She has advocated for low-income consumers in utility proceedings in several states, is a contributing author of NCLC’s Access to Utility Service, and has worked on transportation electrification policy and competitive energy supply issues. She co-wrote NCLC’s Model Medical Debt Protection Act, and is a contributing author to NCLC’s Collection Actions treatise. Prior to joining NCLC, she was the first director of the Office of Patient Protection at the Massachusetts Health Policy Commission. Previously, Jen advocated for health care needs of low-income individuals at Health Law Advocates, advocated for low-income clients at the Massachusetts Law Reform Institute and Merrimack Valley Legal Services, and served as an Assistant Attorney General in Massachusetts. Jen holds a J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center and a B.A. from Boston College.

Mary Kingsley, contributing author, is a 1971 graduate of Harvard Law School and a Massachusetts attorney. She has contributed to a number of NCLC publications in addition to this volume, including Fair Debt Collection and Repossessions.