Foreclosure-Gate: Non-Lawyers Prosecuted Foreclosures Before Courts

12-04-2010 • NakedCapitalism.com/

So why is this such a big deal? Non-lawyers practicing law is impermissible in other states. Most foreclosure mills are run on the same template: impossibly high staff to attorney ratios, 90 or 100 to every attorney. The ratios alone make meaningful supervision impossible. And this high leverage wasn’t due solely to partner greed. Some foreclosure mills, contrary to the laws of many states, had private equity funds as investors. And other foreclosure mills were keen to secure PE monies. So most industry incumbents had the same profile: an extraordinarily high staff to partner ratio, with standardized processes to maximize profits. As a result, just as with the robo signers, it appears likely that documents were signed improperly. Matt Weidner has examples of signatures from an Ohio law firm by attorney Edward M. Kochalski that are so different that it is pretty implausible that one person signed them all. But here, the ramifications are far more serious. The Loughren complaint looks solid and has detailed factual allegations.