'Angel' of foreclosure defense bedevils lenders

[DogPoundPup]

Florida attorney trains hundreds of others to help troubled borrowers

By Mike Stuckey
Senior news editor
msnbc.com
updated 6:39 a.m. ET, Fri., Dec. 19, 2008

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. - “You ever look into a place where snakes hang out?” she asks in the middle of a conversation about the loan officers, appraisers, investment bankers, attorneys and others that she believes are responsible for the nation’s worsening financial crisis. “That’s what I see here. They’re writhing and oozing and morphing into creepy stuff with slime all over it.”

Then in her quiet, gentle drawl — the kind of voice that could get you invited to afternoon drinks on the finest porches in South Florida, where she grew up — she leans forward and says quite earnestly, “Not to discredit snakes or anything.”

Charney, a lawyer with the Jacksonville Area Legal Aid agency, is quickly developing a national reputation as a champion of homeowners facing foreclosure and a serious adversary for those attempting to take possession of those homes. Her encyclopedic knowledge of contract law, debt-collection practice, securitized mortgages, the trusts that hold them and the agreements that govern the trusts have put her at the forefront of the rapidly expanding specialty of foreclosure defense.

While carrying her own load of 70 to 100 foreclosure cases as a legal aid attorney, Charney, 51, also has become one of the nation’s top trainers of other lawyers eager to learn how to serve the growing clientele spawned by America’s mortgage meltdown.

About 1,500 lawyers have attended her daylong classes on foreclosure law so far, 80 to 200 at a time. She has taught in Ohio, California, Minnesota, South Carolina, Missouri and throughout Florida. She offers the classes at cost with the help of local bar associations and aid groups and requires that all students perform 20 hours of pro bono legal work in their communities.

Read more ... http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28277420/

[Trajan]

1. Very cool story ....

See ? ... There ARE good people left, Virginia ....