Archive for December, 2010
Recently out of law school and looking for work, scores of young Florida attorneys found steady paychecks in burgeoning firms whose business is based on repossessing the American dream.
Today, more than 260 attorneys work at four of Florida's largest foreclosure firms, and 48% of them have been practicing law for less than three years, according to Florida Bar records obtained by The Palm Beach Post.
Of 156 attorneys who started the year churning out foreclosures at the massive Plantation-based operation of David J. Stern but have since left or been laid off, half had been practicing law for less than four years.
With this fall's allegations of forged foreclosure documents, fraudulent notarizations and questionable affidavits submitted in tens of thousands of foreclosure cases, those nascent lawyers are now under a cloud of suspicion.
Two and a half years ago, Robert and Amy Ahleman, a construction contractor and a financial services employee, were mired in a mortgage nightmare. After missing just one loan payment on their modest, well-kept bungalow in Bensalem, Pa., the couple began receiving notices from their lender. Default fees and eviction threats followed.
As the amounts they owed ballooned because of mounting late fees and other dubious charges, their lender refused to take their payments, claiming they were insufficient — which put the Ahlemans even further behind.
The couple soon realized that filing for bankruptcy was the only way to save their home. At the time, the Ahlemans had two mortgages, one for just under $200,000 and a second for $50,000, and the debt was smothering them.
Today, however, the Ahlemans have a happier story to tell. Not only did they survive their harrowing experience with their home intact, but they say they have emerged happier and thriftier for it.
