Position Title
Professor of Law
- 530-752-5052
- jphunt@ucdavis.edu
- Legal Scholarship at SSRN
- Curriculum Vitae
- High Resolution Photo
John Patrick Hunt’s area of scholarly interest is law and finance. His recent work focuses on student-loan bankruptcy; previously, his scholarship has addressed municipal bankruptcy, credit rating agencies, and mortgage securitization, transfer, and modification. Before joining the UC Davis faculty in 2009, John was Research Director of the Law and Finance Program at the Berkeley Center for Law, Business and the Economy. He has also worked as a regulatory lawyer and litigator at two major law firms and as a credit derivatives research analyst. He holds a J.D. from Yale Law School and a Master’s in Financial Engineering from the U.C. Berkeley Haas School of Business, and served as a law clerk to the Honorable Stephen F. Williams of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Hunt is a member of the American Law Institute.
- A.B. Russian and Soviet Studies, summa cum laude, Harvard University, 1991, Phi Beta Kappa
- J.D. Yale Law School, 1995
- M.F.E. Financial Engineering, Haas School of Business, University of California at Berkeley, 2007
- Berkeley Center for Law, Business and the Economy, Research Director, Law and Finance Program, 2008-2009
- Credit Derivatives Research LLC, Senior Research Analyst, 2007-08
- Munger, Tolles & Olson LLP,1999-2005
- United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, Law clerk to Judge Stephen F. Williams, 1998-99
- Shearman & Sterling LLP,1995-98
- Executive Editor, Yale Journal on Regulation
- Bankruptcy
- Contracts
- Secured Transactions
- Bankruptcy
- Contracts
- Mortgages
- “Professors’ Roundtable,” 37th Annual California Real Property Law Section Retreat, April 20, 2018.
- “Opportunistic Municipal Bankruptcy,” Bay Area Corporate/Transactional Workshop, UC Hastings School of Law, July 23, 2014
- “Should the Mortgage Follow the Note?,” Pacific West Business Law Scholars Colloquium, University of Oregon School of Law, October 4, 2013.
- “Consideration Doctrine and Regulatory Arbitrage in Mortgage Securitization,” National Business Law Scholars Conference, University of Cincinnati School of Law, June 27, 2012.
- “Consideration Doctrine and Regulatory Arbitrage in Mortgage Securitization,” 16th Annual Conference of the International Society for New Institutional Economics, University of Southern California Gould School of Law, June 15, 2012.
- “Consideration Doctrine and Regulatory Arbitrage in Mortgage Securitization,” 7th International Conference on Contracts, Thomas Jefferson School of Law, March 2-3, 2012.
- “Rating-Dependent Regulation of Insurance,” UC Davis School of Law, Oct. 4, 2010.
- “Credit Ratings and Insurance,” at “Regulating Risk,” Connecticut Insurance Law Journal Symposium, April 16, 2010.
- “A Breakdown of the Bailout,” UC Berkeley School of Law, February 18, 2010 (student-sponsored event).
- “Subprime Mortgage Securitization and Credit Ratings,” Hastings Business Law Journal Symposium, April 16, 2009.
- “Credit Ratings and Financial Innovation,” South Carolina Law Review Symposium, Oct. 24, 2008.
Publications
Consent to Student-Loan Bankruptcy Discharge, 95 Ind. L.J. 1137 (2020)
Help or Hardship?: Income-Driven Repayment in Student-Loan Bankruptcies, 106 Geo. L.J. 1287 (2018)
Constitutionalized Consent: Preemption of State Tax Limits in Municipal Bankruptcy, 34 Yale. J. on Reg. 391 (2017)
Taxes and Ability to Pay in Municipal Bankruptcy, 91 Wash. L. Rev. 515 (2016)
Should the Mortgage Follow the Note?, 75 Ohio State L.J. 155 (2014)
What Do Subprime Securitization Contracts Say About Mortgage Modification?, 31 Yale J. on Reg. Online 11 (2013)
Rebalancing Private and Public in the Law of Mortgage Transfer (with Richard Stanton and Nancy Wallace), 62 Am. U. L. Rev. 1529 (2013)
U.S. Residential-Mortgage Transfer Systems: A Data-Management Crisis (with Richard Stanton & Nancy Wallace), in Handbook of Financial Data & Risk Information (2013) (Cambridge Univ. Press)
All in One Basket: The Bankruptcy Risk of a National Agent-Based Mortgage Recording System (with Richard Stanton & Nancy Wallace), 46 U.C. Davis L. Rev. 1 (2012)
Credit Ratings in Insurance Regulation: The Missing Piece of Financial Reform, 68 Wash. & Lee L. Rev. 1667 (2011)
Taking Bubbles Seriously in Contract Law, 61 Case W. Res. L. Rev. 681 (2011)
Rating Agencies and Credit Insurance, in Capital Structure & Financing Decisions: Theory, Evidence, and Practice, Theory, Evidence, and Practice (2011) (Wiley)
One Cheer for the Rating Agencies: How the Mark-to-Market Accounting Debate Highlights the Case for Rating-Dependent Regulation, 60 S.C. L. Rev. 749
Rating Agencies and the ‘Worldwide Credit Crisis’: The Limits of Reputation, the Insufficiency of Reform, and a Proposal for Improvement, 2009 Colum. Bus. L. Rev. 109
What Do Subprime Securitization Contracts Actually Say About Loan Modifications? Preliminary Results and Implications, March 2009 (BCLBE white paper)
A Guide to the Financial Bailout Regulation, October 2008 (BCLBE white paper)
The SEC’s Proposed Rating Agency Rules: Unresolved Conflicts, Berkeley Center for Law, Business and the Economy, June 2008. (BCLBE white paper)
Hedge Fund Regulation: The President’s Working Group Committees’ Best Practices Reports, Berkeley Center for Law, Business, and the Economy, June 2008 (BCLBE white paper)