Here is the problem for certain lawyers:
If they question the instructions, data, reports and testimony offered to them — like really question them — they won’t see a single foreclosure case referred to them. Law firms have been built using foreclosure prosecution as their sole business model. Some like Tiffany and Bosco made so much money doing that, that the principals each ended up with private jets, yachts, and chalets. Stern in Florida sold his “business” for tens of millions of dollars. So it goes without saying that such law firms and the lawyers who work for those law firms have an incentive NOT to ask questions.
But if they continue with their current custom and practice they are likely to end up getting the treatment from a very angry judge, especially in federal court. That is because those lawyers have tacitly agreed to receive and act on uncorroborated information without performing ANY due diligence as to the veracity or authenticity of the claim, the supporting documents or the proferred testimony of a witness who knows nothing other than the contents of a script that he or she memorized. Besides being held in contempt, sanctions, and fines, they could lose their license.
Many law firms in the country are acutely aware of this and as such have refused to enter the foreclosure marketplace because they know that the instructions have not been issued by anyone who has legally recognized authority.
They know that not being able to speak with an officer of the claimant for whom they are being asked to represent is not within the bounds of the ethics and disciplinary rules and is likely to land them in hot water — like the lawyer who got stuck with a $100,000 fine in South Florida when he admitted to filing a foreclosure suit for U.S. bank but had never spoken with anyone from U.S. Bank nor had never received any document from U.S. Bank, much less the ledger that corroborated the existence of an unpaid loan account. The Circuit Court judge (state court) became infuriated when the admission finally came out.
In Oregon, appellate attorneys admitted in oral argument that they and no idea about the identity of the creditor for the alleged debtor.
So to put a finer point on it, consider https://e-discoveryteam.com/2018/10/14/judge-pauley-reminds-lawyers-of-their-duty-to-verify-client-representations/
If it is key electronic evidence, then give it a full dental exam, including especially the metadata. Plaintiff’s counsel in this case failed to do that. He barely glanced at the horse. As a result the case was lost and so was he. He was forced to withdraw and almost personally sanctioned for violation of Rule 3.3 Candor Toward The Tribunal, ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct. Also see: Attorney Avoids Sanctions Over Client’s ‘Staged Photos’ (Bloomberg Law 7/31/18) (“Attorney won’t be sanctioned for failing to discover that his client had lied about when digital photos were taken in order to support her case against New York City police officers.”).
This holding re Rule 37 should be limited to the unusual facts of Lawrence. The production of altered and faked evidence to another party, instead of the originals, certainly can be a Rule 37 violation. You do not have to prove that the attorney was in on it before Rule 37 applies.
We should all be aware of the Big Bad Wolf client who comes in with computer evidence too good to be true. Look carefully, Grandma may be a wolf and you may be tangled in a web of fraud.
Filed under: foreclosure |
And to John Reed — we don’t get over it. It haunts away at us every day of lives. All the while knowing – nothing was ever done to stop the fraud.
It is just that the practice has continued for well over two decades or more — and continued for over a decade since the settlements with big banks! It is always a “maybe” that a good kind judge will see the truth, but not one precedent law setting case has come forward since, perhaps, Judge Arthur Schack. What kind of people go into the law to fraudulently put people out of their homes? Yes, life sucks and then you die. Wealthy friend who suffered much hardship taught me that. Money could not fix his hardships. We all have hardships. Money Money Money — you don’t die with it. Government – where did you go? Who are you?
Yes. Life Sucks. And then you Die. And then a whole new group of Sheep is ready to be shorn.
That’s the Criminal Game Plan. Always has been.
Until the People stop being cowards & fight back
WHILE THEY ARE STILL ALIVE.
An estimated 30+ Million homes foreclosed on…. I personally have re-posted over 60,000 articles concerning the legal problems of illegal mortgages…. and the best the legal industry can say is “if they continue with their current custom and practice they are likely to end up getting the treatment from a very angry judge, especially in federal court.”?!?!?! 30 Million homes… at 2.5 inhabitants per house… that’s 75 MILLION people kicked out of their homes… all while the legal industry just kept collecting filing fee’s and billable hours and the last hope of those losing their homes by taking their last pennies to enter just 1 single document into the Court… an “Answer to Foreclosure”… which, as we all scan the court records we find well over 95% of all attorneys representing homeowners ever file in those cases… “sure we can save your home…gimme some money…. I’ll create the necessary pleading… Oh.. you lost… I’m so sorry… NEXT!” 75 MILLION human beings displaced from their homes… and all we get is… “maybe an angry Federal Judge will hear about it”? This overall event is probably going down in history as the one major event that finallly and forever has taught us all… the Legal Industry is a Fraud. They are a Cartel of Liars. They steal under the guise of being helpful and useful to otherwise unsuspecting, law abiding citizens and as such… they should be shunned, ignored and starved out of existence. Notice the period. And Neil… I know you’re not one of those types of Attorneys… oitherwise you still wouldn’t be posting these articles… It is a shame, but your fellow legal associates have ruined your profession. That good, and fair, and just system you studied and tried to represent… it doesn’t exist for at least about 1/4 of all Americans. You’ve been foreclosed on by your own profession. Life sucks! But hey… you’ll get over it… that’s what us 75 Million had to do.
Great article!
Many homeowners lose their cases for those reasons and there is rampant collusion in the legal system. They all know the assignment, allow the banks to win the cases by omission and removal of factual evidence, banks filing false claims with no objections from opposing counsel, banks missing the statute of limitation on alleged claims but still being allowed to move forward with the case that should have been dismissed in the homeowner’s favor.
All of this chaos has been facilitated by the Florida Supreme Court’s ruling that the banks could keep refiling that foreclosure case against the homeowner despite the fact that they were previously unable to win that case.
Wink, wink, to the banks provide the false documentation at the next round of foreclosure filings and the courts will give them the win in that wrongful foreclosure case.
It is no surprise that Banks now blatantly enter fabricated documentation as evidence and win the wrongful foreclose cases. I have lost all hope in this legal system. It’s corrupted.