Attorneys Offering Dubious Loan Modification Services To Financially Strapped Homeowners Hits National Media

In Dallas, Texas, CBS News reports:

• [Dallas-area homeowner Warren Jacobs] unwittingly became one of the many thousands of homeowners authorities allege have been taken in by unscrupulous or incompetent loan modification attorneys who rushed into a burgeoning legal niche: helping financially struggling homeowners re-negotiate their mortgages. Ripoffs of homeowners have become so commonplace that state bar associations from Florida to Arizona are warning their members of the many ethical pitfalls awaiting those who exploit the mortgage crisis.

• The California State Bar launched a task force a year ago to examine thousands of homeowner complaints about foreclosure lawyers. Currently, the California Bar is investigating more than 400 attorneys who are suspected of ripping off thousands of homeowners across the country.The organization that licenses and disciplines California's more than 250,000 lawyers already has suspended or obtained the resignations of 15 lawyers while disciplinary charges are pending.

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• "The complaints are still going through the roof," said Suzan Anderson, the Bar's lead mortgage fraud prosecutor, who receives more than 30 complaints daily and expects many more lawyers to lose their licenses. Many of the complaints, like Texas homeowner Jacobs', are about do-nothing attorneys.

For more, see Lawyer Misconduct Rises With Foreclosure Record (Hundreds Of Foreclosure Attorneys Investigated In Calif. For Duping Desperate Homeowners).