Lawyers Berated by Judges for Foreclosure Lapses

The lawyers are being berated by judges for foreclosure lapses. Judges have become more critical about residential foreclosures and looking beyond the lenders to the activities of the lawyers and what hand they had in the mess. In many cases the judges are accusing the lawyers for processing slipshod and even false documents in foreclosure cases while representing the lenders.

New York Supreme Court judge Arthur M.Schack has targeted Steven J. Baum, a lawyer while referring to one of the foreclosure cases as "incredible, outrageous, ludicrous and disingenuous".

The judges of New York are in the frontline in clearing the mortgage chaos by focusing on the attorneys. Last November one judge ordered a legal firm to deposit about $20,000 as penalty because the documents contained innumerable "falsities". Judge Scott Fairgrieve (District Court of Nassau County) wrote, "Swearing to false statement reflects poorly on the profession as a whole".

In general the courts of New York State as well as Florida State are mandating that that the attorneys dealing with foreclosures testify for the correctness of the documents they submit. This has led to a protest from New York bar. The requirement is also being mulled over by other state courts. This could result in disciplinary action being taken against the lawyers that could bring down curtains on their careers apart from other harm.

Stephen Gillers, who is legal ethics expert (New York University), was in agreement with Judge Fairgrieve. If lawyers got involved in dubitable transaction then the reputation of the legal profession as a whole would come into question.

The public would look askance at the legal line of work Gillers said, "When the consequence of a lawyer plying his trade is the loss of someone’s home, and it turns out there are documents being given to the courts that have no basis in reality, the profession gets a very big black eye".

However the matter of swearing to the authenticity of documents is sure to be resisted by the legal personnel in other states apart from New York.

Anne Reynolds Copps of New York State Bar (chairperson – real estate section) said, "We had a lot of concerns, because it seemed to paint attorneys as being the problem". The lawyers feared they would be held responsible for the errors of the bank. Copps added that lawyers rely on their client or the employees of the client to submit the information on which the documents are based".