NYC Firms Team Up, Tag Notorious Buffalo-Based Sweatshop For Failure To Meet Recently Mandated Requirements In State Foreclosure Actions

In New York City, non-profit law firm MFY Legal Services, Inc. has issued the following press release:

• MFY Legal Services, Inc. and Harwood Feffer LLP(1) filed suit on August 4, 2011 against Steven J. Baum PC, a law firm that files 40% of the foreclosure actions in New York State, charging unfair debt collection and deceptive practices in filing thousands of foreclosure lawsuits.



• Justice Deceived, a study of a representative sample of foreclosure filings in Brooklyn and Queens before and after the New York State Court's October 2010 rule requiring foreclosure law firms to attest to the accuracy of every foreclosure summons and complaint (the "Due Diligence Affirmation"), showed that four large law firms filed hundreds of foreclosure cases, but failed to file the documents that cause the case to be assigned to a judge and trigger a state-mandated settlement conference.



• In 82% of foreclosure cases filed in November 2010, lawyers failed to file the required Request for Judicial Intervention (RJI) and Due Diligence Affirmation seven months after the case was filed.



• "This is the biggest scandal since robo-signing," said Elizabeth Lynch, an attorney at MFY Legal Services, a non-profit organization, and author of the new report. "Homeowners are left in limbo while they wait for the bank's law firm to file the documents that will trigger a settlement conference, which is their best chance of saving their home. Instead, the banks reject their mortgage payments and charge additional fees and interest that undercut homeowners' chances for a successful loan modification."

For more, see Law Firm Firm Sued For Undermining New York State's Protections For Homeowners In Foreclosure (New MFY Study Shows that Large Firms Withhold Legal Documents from Judicial Filings, Leaving Cases in Limbo while Fees and Arrears Accumulate for Distressed Homeowners).

For the lawsuit, see Cole v. Steven J. Baum, P.C.

See Justice Deceived: How Large Foreclosure Firms Subvert State Regulations Protecting Homeowners for a study of a representative sample of foreclosure filings in Brooklyn and Queens before and after the New York State Court's October 2010 rule requiring foreclosure law firms to attest to the accuracy of every foreclosure summons and complaint.

(1) MFY Legal Services, Inc. is a non-profit provider of civil legal assistance to New Yorkers who cannot afford attorneys. Harwood Feffer LLP is a firm that specializes in complex, multi-party litigation with an emphasis on securities and shareholder class and derivative actions, ERISA and civil rights litigation, antitrust matters and consumer litigation.