Recruiting Drive For Philadelphia Lawyers To Provide Pro Bono Representation To Local Homeowners Facing Foreclosure Continues

In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, WPVI-TV Channel 6 reports on a local non-profit legal agency tasked with recruiting local attorneys to represent financially strapped homeowners through the Philadelphia Residential Mortgage Foreclosure Diversion Program:

• Stefanie Seldin of Philadelphia VIP told Action News that there are 300 lawyers mostly from small to medium-sized and solo firms. A non-profit legal agency, Philadelphia VIP specially trains lawyers to help low-income folks in the program. Sledin adds, though, that the problem is "to sustain the program we really need to hit the large law firms." But many of those firms have lawyers who represent the lenders. "If you have 300 lawyers in a firm and 10 of them represent Citi - those other 290 could not participate in this program until now," Sledin says.

• Now, Citi has agreed to waive conflicts of interest for law firms who participate in the foreclosure diversion program. Citi says it's a win-win: It has loans that are being paid back again, and homeowners get to avoid a lot of anguish.

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• Philadelphia VIP always has a big table set up at the conciliation conferences. You'll get matched up with a free lawyer on-the-spot. By the way, Citi is also giving a grant to Philadelphia VIP to help them recruit and train these volunteer lawyers.

For the story, see Free legal help for homeowners (Free legal help could now be more accessible to thousands of Philadelphia homeowners).