“Wells Fargo & Co. decided to exit reverse mortgages after federal officials insisted it foreclose on elderly customers who were behind on property tax and insurance payments, a Wells executive wrote in an email to business contacts Friday.” [American Banker]
Tagged as:
mortgages
Politics edition:
- Mother ship? White House staffers depart for Harvard Law School [Politico]
- New York: “Lawmakers consider lawyer-friendly med-mal bills,” even as many key legislators moonlight at personal injury firms [Reuters]
- David Brooks on explosive political potential of Fannie Mae scandal [NYTimes] After Kentucky bar panel’s vote to disbar Chesley, Ohio AG pulls him off Fannie Mae suit [Adler, Frank, Beth Musgrave/Lexington Herald-Leader]
- Alabama legislature removes Jim Crow language from state constitution — but black lawmakers oppose the idea [Constitutional Daily]
- AAJ lobbyist Andy Cochran works GOP turf, has convinced trial lawyers to sponsor Christian radio program [Mokhiber, "Seventh Amendment Advocate"]
- Centers for Disease Control funnels grants to allies for political advocacy on favored public-health causes [Jeff Stier, Daily Caller]
- Must have mistaken her for a jury: “John Edwards Sought Millions From Heiress” [ABC News] “One thing [worse than Edwards's] conduct is the government’s effort to put him in jail for it.” [Steve Chapman]
Tagged as:
Alabama,
Barack Obama,
Harvard,
John Edwards,
litigation lobby,
mortgages,
New York,
politics,
public health,
wrong right
- Study of how class action lawyers interact with their named clients [Stephen Meili via Trask]
- California releases numbers on how bounty-hunting lawyers did in 2010 under Prop 65 environmental-warning law [Cal Biz Lit]
- According to the tale, lender errors in foreclosure gave Florida borrower home free and clear. Actual story may be more complicated than that [Funnell]
- The very long discovery arm of the Philadelphia, and Pennsylvania, courts [Drug & Device Law, more]
- UK law firm “could face big bill” after sending thousands of file-sharing demand letters [ABA Journal]
- Goodbye to men’s track at U. of Delaware, and the women’s team is suffering too, as often happens with Title IX [Saving Sports]
- OSHA’s proposed “illness and injury prevention program” (I2P2) termed a “Super Rule” with potentially widespread economic impact [Kirsanow, NRO]
Tagged as:
class actions,
discovery,
forum shopping,
mortgages,
OSHA,
Pennsylvania,
Philadelphia,
Prop 65,
RIAA and file sharing,
Title IX
Some Florida judges are punishing improperly handled foreclosures by giving homes to borrowers free and clear [Palm Beach Post]
Tagged as:
Florida,
mortgages
New York chief judge Jonathan Lippman floats a highly dubious idea that would build toward that even more dubious program of full employment for lawyers known as Civil Gideon. [NY Times, Alkon]
Tagged as:
civil gideon,
mortgages,
New York
- EU imposes unisex insurance rates [BBC, Wright]
- Law blog on the offense? TechnoLawyer asserts trademark claim against Lawyerist over “Small Law” [Lawyerist]
- “Pro-business Supreme Court” meme strikes out yet again as SCOTUS backs “cat’s-paw” bias suit theory by 8-0-2 margin [Josh Blackman, Schwartz, Fox; Lithwick locus classicus]
- Subprime CDO manager sues financial writer Michael Lewis over statements in his book The Big Short [AW, Salmon, Kennerly]
- Police in Surrey, England, deny advising garden shed owners not to use wire mesh against burglars [Volokh, earlier]
- Patterns of intimidation: protesters swarm Speaker Boehner’s private residence [Hollingsworth, Examiner] Unions fighting Wal-Mart in NYC plan actions at board members’ homes [Stoll] Report: GOP lawmakers in Wisconsin fear for personal safety [Nordlinger, NRO] White House pushing street protests [Welch, Nordlinger] Age of Civility short lived [Badger Blogger, Althouse, Sullivan]
- In clash with trial lawyers, Cuomo proposes pain and suffering limits in med-mal suits [NYDN, more: NYT] “Bloomberg looks to Texas for ideas on changing medical malpractice laws” [City Hall News]
- Hey, should we seize his drum set? Infuriating video on cop raids and forfeiture laws [Institute for Justice, Michigan]
Tagged as:
Dahlia Lithwick,
Europe,
forfeiture,
insurance,
labor unions,
legal blogs,
libel slander and defamation,
medical malpractice,
mortgages,
New York,
sex discrimination,
Supreme Court,
trademarks
- “Lawyer held in contempt for advising clients to retake foreclosed home” [Ventura County Star, earlier]
- Some perspective on Wisconsin Gov. Walker’s plans: about half the states curtail some or all public-sector unionism [Barro]
- Guy who sued over Jimmy Carter book offers his side of story [Turley, earlier]
- “Disbarment recommended for litigator Chesley over fen-phen fees” [NLJ, PoL, previously on scandal] Kenneth Feinberg affidavit in case draws scrutiny [Steele/LEF, Frank/PoL]
- Mississippi: “Minor, 2 ex-judges disbarred by state Supreme Court” [Sun-Herald, related on scheduled resentencing, earlier]
- “AIG Ended Up Having To Pay Millions For the Duke Lacrosse Stripper Lawsuit” [Business Insider, earlier]
- Labor Department hotline to put workers in touch with private lawyers [Fox Biz, Wood/PoL]
- Underage man on hook for child support to older woman [seven years ago on Overlawyered]
Tagged as:
Kentucky fen-phen settlement fraud,
mortgages,
Paul Minor,
Stan Chesley,
wage and hour suits,
Wisconsin
Attorney Michael Pines “admits to breaking into homes at least half a dozen times… leaving the clients [most famously baseball legend Lenny Dykstra] to squat in their homes while he defends their legal right to possession.” More in an L.A. Times profile:
Although Pines advises his clients not to pay their lenders, he wants to be paid.
“I tell my clients that if you’re living in a house for free, you should be able to afford to pay a lawyer,” Pines said, adding that he usually charges an hourly rate of $650.
Tagged as:
mortgages
- Report: dead woman’s name robo-signed onto thousands of collection documents [Business Insider] Or was it? [comment, Fredrickson/Collections and Credit Risk (alleging that living daughter shares name of deceased mother)] “Are faked attorney signatures the ‘next huge issue’ in the foreclosure scandal?” [Renee Knake, Legal Ethics Forum]
- “Major Verdict Threatens to Bankrupt Maker of Exercise Equipment” [Laura Simons, Abnormal Use]
- Decline in competitiveness of U.S. capital markets owes much to legal and regulatory developments [Bainbridge, related]
- Deadly Choices, The Panic Virus: Dr. Paul Offit and Seth Mnookin have new books out on vaccine controversy [Orac]
- “No one’s trying to get rich off this,” says lawyer planning suit on behalf of A train subway riders stranded during NYC blizzard [NY Daily News]
- Washington Attorney General Rob McKenna continues to seek solutions to state’s uniquely exposed litigation position, including fix of joint and several liability [Seattle Times, background here and here]
- ABA Blawg 100 picks — and a critique;
- Alabama bar orders lawyer’s law license suspended, but in the mean time he’s been elected judge [four years ago on Overlawyered]
Tagged as:
debtor-creditor law,
legal blogs,
mortgages,
not about the money,
NYC,
product liability,
recreation,
sovereign immunity,
transit,
vaccines,
Washington state
How foreclosure-defense lawyers found themselves at the cutting edge of one of the year’s major business stories. [WSJ via Ted/PoL]
Tagged as:
mortgages
That’s the way to help ‘em out!
While such an approach is sometimes used in commercial litigation, this is a first for consumer cases, said Lester Brickman, a professor at Cardozo Law School in New York.
“For a lawyer to supplement or replace the banks as a long-term mortgage creditor of homeowners leaves me a little queasy,” said Mr. Brickman, an expert on contingency fees. “It’s an invitation for the public to say, ‘There go the lawyers again.’ ”
OK, we’ll say it: There go the lawyers again. [New York Times via Ribstein/TotM and Knake/LEF]
Tagged as:
attorneys' fees,
contingent fee,
mortgages
Lawyers profited handsomely from devising the foreclosure-mill model, and now will profit handsomely from exposing its flaws, as Larry Ribstein notes. More: Arnold Kling (“If you say that ‘the law is the law’ and ‘rules must be enforced as written,’ that can be a consistent position and I can respect you for it. But then don’t turn around and say that we should empower mortgage counselors to rewrite people’s loans.”) Stephen Bainbridge (prospective lawsuit wave over packaging of mortgages for investors “show the extent to which mass financial torts now adversely affect American business.”)
Yet more: “Lawsuit wave could hurt housing market: FDIC chief” [AP/WaPo]; the elusive search for villains [Holman Jenkins, WSJ]
Tagged as:
mortgages
- Gulf spill fund flooded with dubious claims [Fred Smith, CEI]
- If these cases go forward, it will make it economically unfeasible for anyone to make vaccines in this country” [NYT quoting Beck on Bruesewitz v. Wyeth preemption case now before SCOTUS]
- Barney Frank’s evolving views on Fannie/Freddie oversight [Mankiw, Globe]
- $5.2 million legal bills to Michael Jackson estate [TMZ]
- Frederick, Maryland pizzeria owner asked to pay $200K for unsolicited faxes [Gazette; my WSJ take four years ago]
- UK: “Migration Watch” may sue critic [David Allen Green via Richard Wilson, more]
- Parody of cheesy law firm promotes TV series “Breaking Bad” ["Better Call Saul", autoplays video/audio]
- N.J.: “Drowns while fleeing cops, family sues for $50M” [five years ago on Overlawyered]
Tagged as:
Barney Frank,
BP Transocean oil spill,
libel slander and defamation,
mortgages,
preemption,
restaurants,
United Kingdom,
vaccines
