"Assembly Line" Lawyering, Culture Condoning Lying To The Court In Foreclosure Cases Has Bankruptcy Judge Wondering

The Wall Street Journal Law Blog reports:

• Does flat-fee pricing foster assembly-line lawyering? That’s what U.S. bankruptcy judge Jeff Bohm suggested in a decision, entered yesterday, in a consumer bankruptcy case involving Countrywide and a Texas homeowner. While Judge Bohm declined to enter sanctions against Countrywide and its lawyers from two firms — Barrett Burke and McCalla Raymer — he wrote: “This fixed-fee business model appears to have been an overwhelming financial success. . . . Meanwhile, the profession has suffered from the ever decreasing standards that firms like Barrett Burke and McCalla Raymer have heretofore promoted. This demise must stop.”

• The judge called problems at the firms’ culture “disconcerting” and described what he called the firms lack of care for accuracy and failure to communicate with clients. “[W]hat kind of culture condones its lawyers lying to the court and then retreating to the office hoping that the Court will forget about the whole matter.” While “perfection” he said is “too much to demand, preparedness and candor are not.”

For more, see Foreclosure Legal Work: A Shoddy, Assembly-Line Practice?

For an article examining mortgage companies frequent non-compliance with law in consumer bankruptcy cases, see Misbehavior and Mistake in Bankruptcy Mortgage Claims, by Katherine M. Porter University of Iowa - College of Law.

Go here, Go here and Go here for more on recent Countrywide problems with consumers. ForeclosureMillAttorneysAlpha SloppyForeclosuresAlpha