It’s rare that I’ll put forward an optimistic post about a mid-level federal agency hire. But that’s what I’m about to do. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau just hired the man who knows more about MERS – and their deficiencies – than perhaps anyone in the country. University of Utah Law Professor Christopher Peterson will join the bureau.

So, I had a pretty incredible conversation last night with Christopher Peterson, the law professor and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at the University of Utah, who wrote two illuminating Law Review articles about MERS, the shell entity that created an electronic database for the trading of mortgages. I’m going to do my best to summarize the findings of the interview, but I want to stress two things that I learned – 1) this is very heady stuff, tied up in contract law and all sorts of associated legal issues, 2) absolutely nobody in this country knows with any certainty how this is going to play out.