Editorial team
Who writes this site
Two desks: one writes the cost math and lender pages, one reviews the legal guides. Every page carries its byline and its verification date — nothing here is anonymous.
Two bylines cover everything here because the site is deliberately narrow: a registry of documented lenders and a research desk about the documents behind them. Widening the roster would not widen the sourcing; the constraint that matters is that every page names the person answerable for its facts. Questions for a specific editor go through the contact page and reach the desk that owns the page in question.
Two desks, one standard
The records desk builds the index: it pulls rate sheets, exclusion lists, and regulator pages, transcribes them exactly, and stamps each record with the date it was verified. The legal desk reads the enforcement record — dockets, consent orders, state settlements — and reviews anything with a court citation or a statute in it before it ships. Neither desk publishes anonymously, and neither can wave a claim through without a source.
Josephine Adler — Lead researcher, the Index
Builds and maintains the lender index: pulls every published rate sheet, exclusion list, and tribal regulator docket, and stamps each record with the date it was last verified. Writes the cost math and the APR monitor series.
Elias Thornberry — Legal & enforcement editor
Reads court dockets so borrowers don’t have to — Fourth and Seventh Circuit arm-of-the-tribe rulings, CFPB consent orders, state AG settlements. Reviews every index record and research note for sourcing before it is published.
How authorship gets stamped
Every record, research note, and blog post declares its author in frontmatter, shows the byline under the title, and carries the dates its facts were checked. The sitemap carries the same modified dates the pages show. When a correction restamps a record’s verification date, the piece’s updated date moves with it — so the trail from author to edit stays followable on every page.
Who owns what
- Records desk: the lender directory, every per-record verification stamp, the cost math, and the quarterly APR monitor.
- Legal desk: the enforcement timeline, sovereign-immunity and consent-order pieces, and pre-publication review of every guide citing a court or a regulator.
- Both desks: corrections — a fix is verified against the primary source and restamped regardless of who wrote the original line.
- Neither desk: anonymous publishing, unsourced claims, or score changes made outside the published formula.