NY Fed Looks To Iron Out Conflict Of Interest Issues With City's Largest Law Firms On Pro Bono Help For Homeowners In Foreclosure
In New York City, The Am Law Daily reports:
- The Federal Reserve Bank of New York has summoned lawyers at some of the city's elite law firms and largest banks for a meeting Wednesday to discuss the low participation in a year-old waiver program meant to allow firms to handle foreclosure cases for homeowners pro bono. [...] At the time of its launch, the program, called the Lawyers Foreclosure Intervention Nework (LFIN), stressed [conflict-of-interest] waivers for firms that represent financial institutions; the expectation was most of the lawyers would come from such firms. But a year later, the program's participants are largely solo practitioners and small firms, with only a couple lawyers from large firms.
- Fed officials are now trying to figure out if there's a way to bolster participation. A copy of Wednesday's agenda, obtained by The Am Law Daily (download the document), outlines an array of possible fixes, including allowing lawyers at large firms advise volunteer lawyers for the homeowners anonymously.
For more, see New York Fed To Convene Meeting on Foreclosure Pro Bono.
Go here for Wednesday's meeting agenda.
1 comment:
The Federal Reserve’s latest effort to placate the big firms into providing anonymous legal guidance by phone to us “less experienced” volunteer lawyers is, frankly, insulting to we attorneys who, lacking the financial and administrative resources of a BigLaw firm, have nonetheless taken the time and made the commitment to provide foreclosure defense representation through LFIN. I graduated from Fordham Law School in 1998; I have nearly ten solid years of litigation experience behind me, mostly in public interest representation. To suggest that my representation of clients in the LFIN program can be enhanced by a brief telephone encounter with some anonymous young lawyer who has probably never done more in a courtroom than carry a trial bag and nod cogently at the arguments made by a partner is nothing short of ingratitude to those of us who have stepped up.
The suggestion that big firm attorneys can anonymously provide oracular wisdom to the “little guys” smacks of the corporatist mentality that got us into this mess and that has hampered this effort to date. The big firms could better serve this program by financing our research, providing treatises or funds to reimburse litigation costs. Oh, and I wouldn’t turn down a free desk at one of their plush offices.
C.I.
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