Skip to main content
Dalié Jiménez

Dalié Jiménez

Professor of Law, University of California, Irvine School of Law

Director, UC Student Loan Law Initiative at UCI Law

Biography

Dalié Jiménez, J.D., is Professor of Law at the University of California, Irvine School of Law, where she also serves as Director of the UC Student Loan Law Initiative. She received her J.D. cum laude from Harvard Law School in 2009. Jiménez is an elected member of the American Law Institute and a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation. She was elected to the American College of Consumer Financial Services Lawyers in 2024 and served as a Commission Member on the American Bankruptcy Institute Commission on Consumer Bankruptcy from 2017 to 2019.

Jiménez's research focuses on consumer debt, bankruptcy, and student loans, with particular emphasis on empirical analysis and randomized control trials in law. She serves as Co-Principal Investigator of the Debt Collection Lab at Princeton University, which tracks debt collection cases nationwide and conducts original research on debt collection practices. Her Financial Distress Research Project, a randomized control trial involving approximately 950 participants, evaluates the effectiveness of legal representation and financial counseling for individuals sued in credit card collection cases. Jiménez has secured over $2 million in grants to support her empirical research projects, including funding from the Laura and John Arnold Foundation, the National Science Foundation, and The Pew Charitable Trusts.

Jiménez has testified before Congress three times on consumer bankruptcy and debt collection issues and served on the drafting committee for the Consumer Bankruptcy Reform Act. She has provided comment letters to the Department of Education on student loan discharge in bankruptcy and to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on debt collection regulations. Before joining academia, Jiménez served as a Policy Fellow at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau from 2011 to 2012, where she advised Bureau staff on debt collection and credit reporting issues and co-authored reports to Congress on credit scoring and remittances.

Return to top

Education

  • J.D. in Law, Harvard Law School, 2009
  • B.S. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2001
  • B.S. in Political Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2001
Return to top

Distinctions

  • Elected Member, American Law Institute, 2019
  • Editorial Advisory Board, Law & Society Review, 2020
  • Fellow, American Bar Foundation, 2019
  • Elected Member, American College of Consumer Financial Services Lawyers, 2024
  • Commission Member, American Bankruptcy Institute Commission on Consumer Bankruptcy, 2017-2019
  • Judge John R. Brown Award for Excellence in Legal Writing, 2010
  • American Bankruptcy Institute 40 under 40 Honoree, 2018
  • National Conference of Bankruptcy Judges / American Bankruptcy Law Journal Fellow, 2013
Return to top

Areas of Expertise

  • Consumer Financial Protection Law
  • Bankruptcy Discharge Procedures
  • Debt Collection Litigation Reforms
  • Student Loan Hardship Analysis
  • Credit Reporting Regulation
  • Randomized Control Trials Methodology
  • Civil Justice Access Barriers

Recent Publications

  • Dalié Jiménez, Belisa Pang, Matthew Bruckner, “Full Discharge Ahead? An Empirical Look at the New Student Loan Discharge Process in Bankruptcy”, Emory Bankruptcy Developments Journal, vol. 41, pp. 259-304, 2025.
  • Dalié Jiménez, Claire Johnson Raba, “Pay to Plead: Finding Unfairness and Abusive Practices in California Debt Collection Cases”, Review of Banking & Financial Law, 2024.
  • Dalié Jiménez, “Decreasing Supply to the Assembly Line of Debt Collection Litigation”, Harvard Law Review Forum, vol. 135, pp. 374, 2022.
  • Dalié Jiménez, Pamela Foohey, Christopher Odinet, “Steering Loan Modifications Post-Pandemic”, Law and Contemporary Problems, vol. 85, pp. 201, 2022.
  • Dalié Jiménez, Pamela Foohey, Christopher Odinet, “The Debt Collection Pandemic”, California Law Review Online, vol. 11, pp. 222, 2020.
  • Dalié Jiménez, Pamela Foohey, Christopher Odinet, “The Folly of Credit as Pandemic Relief”, UCLA L. Rev. Disc., vol. 68, pp. 126, 2020.
  • Dalié Jiménez, Pamela Foohey, Christopher Odinet, “CARES Act Gimmicks: How Not To Give People Money During a Pandemic And What To Do Instead”, University of Illinois Law Review Online, vol. 2020, pp. 81, 2020.
  • Dalié Jiménez, Jonathan Glater, “Student Debt is a Civil Rights Issue: The Case for Debt Relief and Higher Education Reform”, Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review, vol. 55, pp. 131-198, 2020.
  • Dalié Jiménez, Matthew Bruckner, Brook Gotberg, Chrystin Ondersma, “A No-Contest Discharge for Uncollectable Student Loans”, University of Colorado Law Review, vol. 91, pp. 183, 2019.
  • Dalié Jiménez, “Ending Perpetual Debts”, Houston Law Review, vol. 59, pp. 609, 2018.
  • Dalié Jiménez, Alexei Alexandrov, “Lessons from Bankruptcy Reform in the Private Student Loan Market”, Harvard Law & Policy Review, vol. 11, pp. 175, 2017.
  • Dalié Jiménez, D. James Greiner, Lois R. Lupica, “Self-Help, Reimagined”, Indiana Law Journal, vol. 92, pp. 1119, 2017.
  • Dalié Jiménez, “Dirty Debts Sold Dirt Cheap”, Harvard Journal on Legislation, vol. 52, pp. 41, 2015.
  • Dalié Jiménez, “Reforming Preference Law”, Iowa Law Review Bulletin, vol. 100, pp. 41, 2015.
  • Dalié Jiménez, Xiaoling Ang, “Private Student Loans and Bankruptcy: Did Four-Year Undergraduates Benefit from the Increased Collectability of Student Loans?”, Student Loans and the Dynamics of Debt, Upjohn Press, pp. 175-234, 2015.
  • Dalié Jiménez, D. James Greiner, Lois R. Lupica, Rebecca L. Sandefur, “Improving the Lives of Individuals in Financial Distress Using a Randomized Control Trial: A Research and Clinical Approach”, Georgetown Journal on Poverty Law & Policy, vol. 20, pp. 449, 2013.
  • Dalié Jiménez, “The Distribution of Assets in Consumer Chapter 7 Bankruptcy Cases”, American Bankruptcy Law Journal, vol. 83, pp. 795, 2009.
Return to top

Contact Information

Email: daliej@uci.edu

Phone: (949) 824-9868

Address: 3800 B Law, Irvine, CA 92697-8000

Return to top

This profile was created with the help of AI.

Last updated on 3/20/2026.