I have been asked, many times, over the past several years of handling foreclosure defense cases, by friends, family, and other attorneys, what is foreclosure defense? There is routinely a follow up of, “aren’t you just trying to buy people time, isn’t that all you can do?” Sometimes helping a client obtain extra time is their goal and as a lawyer, the client’s goals and best interest is of paramount importance. However, for me, foreclosure defense is so much more. It’s about justice!
Our nation is a nation of laws, to be applied equally to all. The words “and justice for all” are not just a part of our Pledge of Allegiance. They are heartfelt principals that people have fought and died to help achieve and preserve.
During the run up to the financial crisis, some banks turned into sophisticated con-artists. They pushed home loans to people they knew, or should have known, couldn’t afford them. Then they bundled those loans together into Wall Street securities and paid off rating agencies to rate them as AAA, good as gold, when behind the scenes they were calling them “sacks of cr_ _” and placing bets against them so they could collect even more money when they knew these securities would fail. These banks sold their toxic investments to everyone and anyone, local governments, foreign governments, individuals, and pension funds of our citizens, retirees, veterans, and more. In the end, as most of the Wall Street insiders knew they would, these “securities” failed. The big banks made billions selling them and billions more when they collapsed, collecting on their bets. To add insult to injury, when the companies that backed these devious wagers couldn’t pay off the Wall Street gamblers, the US taxpayers and Main Street stepped in to bail them out. Then, if you weren’t upset about that, what happened next should tip the scales. In the year after the bailout and the crisis, Wall Street executives took in more money in bonuses and salaries then they did in any year during the heyday.
The Rosen Law Blog
