In California, where foreclosures are more abundant than in any other state, homeowners trying to win a loan modification have always had a tough time.
Now they face yet another obstacle: hiring a lawyer.
Sharon Bell, a retiree who lives in Laguna Niguel, southeast of Los Angeles, needs a modification to keep her home. She says she is scared of her bank and its plentiful resources, so much so that she cannot even open its certified letters inquiring where her mortgage payments may be. Yet the half-dozen lawyers she has called have refused to represent her.
“They said they couldn’t help,” said Ms. Bell, 63. “But I’ve got to find help, because I’m dying every day.”
Are not lawyers the lowest forms on life on earth lol
No, I think that’s Congressmen.
most Congressmen are lawyers.
Lawyers are deluged with people who want free legal help, especially in today’s economy. We have the same problem as everyone else, we’re small businesses trying to pay our bills and avoid going out of business. We can’t do that if we don’t get paying work. Most of us are essentially living month to month and it only takes a month or two of bad receipts to put us under.
The concept of rich lawyers with oodles of time to give to pro bono representation, or the ability to carry receivables for months or years before getting paid, ended several years ago. Intake for new work at my firm is extremely strict, and we essentially do due diligence on our prospective clients before we will agree to represent them. Unless we get substantial retainers, or have guaranties of payment, we will not take the case. That’s the way it is in the New America.
The New America. I see it all around me. I am old and getting tired of the New America. I stand here on my back porch, looking out over the snow, the trees bending under the wind’s lash, and I don’t see it as I used to; I increasingly feel that I am a stranger in a strange unpleasant land populated by people I would as soon not know. Sooner will be done with the troubles of the world, sings the spiritual, and I feel the truth in my bones. Larry
Yep, it’s not a pretty picture. Our symphony just went out of business, our community theater has announced it’s ceasing at the beginning of the year, foreclosures continue to increase, the morning news says one of our major shippers is asking the PUC for a 27% increase in rates or it’s leaving the state, and our gas prices are headed towards $4+ a gallon again. Today we will have our end of the year meeting where the partners will be told we have gone through a 4th year without making a profit after paying expenses, overhead and employee salaries. The partners will again make less money than our associates–but hey we’re stuck with the liabilities so we can’t just go out of business or things will be worse as we get sued individually by our creditors. But we’re gonna have to start laying people off next month.
Meanwhile, the propaganda coming over the TV and radio can only talk about Obama’s and the Democrats’ lame-duck Great Victory of the People in getting DADT passed and giving up our sovereignty in the START treaty (“oh we can just ignore the parts of the treaty we don’t like because it’s only in the preamble, even if the Russians are insisting it’s operative langauge”). Our economy is getting better by leaps and bounds, according to the Pravda newspapers; well here there’s only one newspaper available any more, the others all have gone out of business.
It’s a cold bleak world out there and our governing class along with its media lapdogs are more and more divorced from reality. I think everything is really going to hit the fan come the new year.