In April, Zachary Hunt ’24 was honored as the winner of the American Bar Association’s (ABA) 2024 Harvey Saferstein Consumer Protection Committee Student Essay Contest. His first-place essay, “Port in a Storm: Colorado’s ‘Safe Harbor’ Settlement as a Template for Online Lending Reform,” was published in volume 109 of the Cornell Law Review.
“It was a wonderful surprise to learn that I had won the award,” says Hunt. “It means so much to be recognized for the hard work that went into this paper, and to have that recognition come from an organization as important as the ABA makes it all the more exciting.”
In his essay, Hunt identifies a settlement between Colorado authorities and two online lending firms as a template for stronger regulatory measures against predatory online lending, and he suggests that the time may be ripe for Congress to directly address the industry through federal legislation. His essay contest win came with a cash scholarship of $5,000 and complimentary registration and travel to the ABA Antitrust Law Section’s Spring Meeting in Washington, D.C, which he attended in early April.
His winning essay originally began as a research paper for Professor Saule Omarova’s Issues in Financial Regulation writing seminar. After the semester ended, he spent several more months editing and revising the paper before submitting it to Cornell Law Review for publication.
