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Rising Up In A Meltdown

Lawyers respond to foreclosures with pro bono effort

By DOUGLAS S. MALAN

As homeowners increasingly default on their mortgages, lawyers are mobilizing to provide assistance to those at risk of losing their homes.

On Friday, the Connecticut Bar Association's Pro Bono Committee is hosting a daylong foreclosure prevention strategies seminar in the grand courtroom of the Quinnipiac University School of Law, starting at 8:30 a.m.

The national crisis in the subprime loan market has filled the foreclosure dockets of state courts, and the seminar is designed to show attorneys from every practice area how they can help.

Defendants who can't afford lawyers are battling foreclosure actions on their own, leaving them highly susceptible to losing their home "because they don't understand exactly what's happening," said Gary P. Sklaver, who is serving as the program's chair.

"The quicker we get attorneys involved, the better," said Sklaver, a name partner of Licari Walsh & Sklaver in New Haven. "It's really a crisis out there."

State courts saw a 50 percent increase in foreclosure cases between 2004-05 and 2006-07, with 15,773 cases filed in Connecticut in the latest year. The New Haven Judicial District saw the most cases added last year with 2,878.

"We're very concerned about the problem but very optimistic about the response by the private bar," said Steve Eppler-Epstein, executive director of Connecticut Legal Services.

The foreclosure prevention program is largely funded by the Office of the Attorney General, and participants will become part of the new Foreclosure Prevention Pro Bono Panel. The Connecticut Fair Housing Center (CFHC) also has been involved in raising funds for the program, which was spearheaded by Erin Boggs, fair lending project director of CFHC, and Jonathan Weiner, chair of the Young Lawyers Section Pro Bono Committee.

"There is a significant need because the people in foreclosure typically exceed the legal services' [income] limit but don't earn enough to hire their own attorney," Weiner said. "We're trying to create a parallel network of lawyers for those people."

The aim is to connect at-risk homeowners with resources that can help save their home or buy them additional time before they're forced out.

Feeling Panic

Often, the borrowers appear in court not understanding their options, said Enfield attorney Keith K. Fuller, who serves as co-chair of the program and represents borrowers in foreclosure. They don't know that they can work with banks to restructure their loan or that they have rights under the foreclosure to list the property for private sale, he said.

"They're already nervous about someone taking their house," Fuller noted. "Then add the confusion [of the process] and it definitely leads to panic and high emotions."

Connecting the lawyers to the borrowers who need that information is the aim of the program.

"Our hope is we'll have brochures distributed to each courthouse throughout the state to advise [defendants] where to go to get help," Sklaver said. "Right now, the system isn't set up to link those who need help to those who are giving help."

The seminar is expected to attract 150 participants.

Though the seminar is free, participants must be willing to handle at least one foreclosure case in court or review loan documents for at least five low-income borrowers in danger of foreclosure. Document review will include looking for defenses such as predatory lending and mortgage fraud.

Attorneys who participate in the seminar should be armed with enough information to start working immediately. But even with 150 lawyers, "we probably still won't have enough attorneys to help," Sklaver said.

Two representatives of the National Consumer Law Center in Boston will present a major portion of the program and distribute printed material and books to explain how lawyers can assist homeowners in need.

"The seminar is designed for someone with no or limited experience" in foreclosure cases, Fuller said. "At the end of the day, they'll be up to speed on the basics of foreclosure. If [a case] gets a little too heavy, [CFHC] has the resources" to take over.

CFHC has hired an attorney, Andrew Pizor, to assist with case distribution and serve as mentor to attorneys who participate in the program. "We want people to take these cases and not feel like they're in over their heads," Pizor said.

Judges' Input

Part of the reason the program came together is because some judges on the foreclosure docket were telling Boggs that homeowners had defenses in their cases that weren't being raised because of a lack of understanding of the law and the situation.

"Some aspects of this are quite complicated," Boggs said.

"This goes beyond individual homeowners," Boggs added. "If your neighbor goes into foreclosure, it affects the property value of your house. It's more than helping one person. It's helping entire communities." •