We enter 2008 amid the housing and mortgage bust which has, as night the day, followed the housing and mortgage bubble. The defl ation of this bubble, and the subsequent credit panic, was the biggest financial news of 2007, and as the deflation of the bubble continues into the new year, it is as much political as financial news. In every housing finance bust, there is an irresistible urge for politicians to “do something” —and they always do. In a financial panic, everybody wants to get a government guarantee, and in one form or another such guarantees are usually provided. Former House Banking Committee Chairman Jim Leach has said that, “The precept of doing nothing should be off the table.” The Secretary of the Treasury recently remarked, “Nothing is worse than doing nothing.” This is not true in economics, but it is absolutely true in politics....

This is the first issue following our twenty-fifth anniversary. Audio and video from the 25th National Lawyers Convention is online. In addition, we are pleased to announce that the transcripts of nearly all of the panel debates will be published in various law reviews this coming year, including The Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, The Georgetown Journal of Law and Public Policy, The Texas Review of Law and Policy, The William and Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review, The New York Journal of Law and Liberty, Ave Maria Law Review, Hofstra Law Review, Regent University Law Review, The Southern New England Roundtable Symposium Law Journal, The SMU Technology Law Review, The University of Miami International and Comparative Law Review, and The Georgetown Journal of Legal Ethics. Publication details appear on the individual webpage for each panel in our new Multimedia Archive. Consequently, we will not be publishing the transcripts as an issue of Engage this year; our next issue will be in June.

Valuation litigation is notoriously unpredictable. When the value of a legal entitlement is in dispute,one party typically will ask for a high valuation, the other for a low one, and each will offer evidence in support of its position. The trier of fact may in the end agree with one side or the other, but could just as easily settle upon a third value of its own choosing. The valuation inquiry is thus inherently imprecise, a discretionary exercise that depends largely on the whims and predispositions of the factfinder. Given this imprecision, conventional legal scholarship has been unable to articulate a convincing theory of legal valuation. Rather than theorize about which valuation methodologies courts can, should, and do employ, the favored approach has been to shift away from valuation method and to focus instead on process reforms that would lead to more predictable outcomes in valuation litigation.

The Federalist Society's Financial Services & E-Commerce Practice Group presented this panel discussion at the 2007 Annual National Lawyers Convention on November 17, 2007. Panelists included Ms. Anne Canfield of the Consumer Mortgage Coalition, Mr. Alex J. Pollock of The American Enterprise Institute, Mr. Allen Fishbein of the Consumer Federation of America, Mrs. Montrice Yakimov of the Office of Thrift Supervision, and Judge Edith H. Jones of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.