Say homeowners are getting shady for the sake of argument, why is it a "lawyer's gambit" when a homeowner finds a loophole, but when banks do it it is sound business to serve shareholders?  

But it seems less relevant lately.  Banks get away with absolutely everything.  The choice is whether to prosecute or punish (of course the Bush War Crimes being a prime example).  We know the law is not executed without regard to human beings (or decency), as it is in Kafka's novels.  It is executed with regard to human beings, but only to the rich.  The rest of us see it and know we're getting uniquely screwed.

Maybe I don't even the stamp...Titles!  Get ya titles here!  Home, Auto...I got titles! :)

Despite my best efforts to answer all of Mr. Whelan's questions, the article contains a number of misstatements. First, Mr. and Mrs. Jackson did not face a foreclosure hearing after simply stopping payment - they paid the entire amount due per a statement sent to them by GMAC, and paid by certified check. GMAC mistakenly refused the check, alleging it was an NSF payment (not possible with certified funds), then placed the couple in foreclosure. I was simply trying to track the facts of the payment by deposing a witness who had sworn in court documents that she had reviewed the entire file and was familiar with the payment history, when, as it turned out, she was not only not familiar with the payment history, but the substance of her entire affidavit was false, including the allegation that the affidavit was sworn to in front of a notary. These were substantive questions I needed answers to - not an excuse for a delay. Further, the judge did not "throw out the case" - it is still pending, with GMAC still suing the Jacksons, years later.

I, and most of my fellow consumer attorneys who are members of the National Association of Consumer Advocates, do not raise these issues for delay - we raise them because we all have cases (this is the bulk of my foreclosure defense practice) where all or part of the foreclosure is purely the fault of the servicer or mill law firm - from homeowners whose payments were misrouted by the servicer, to servicers who simply changed the address of the property and then force-placed flood insurance, to servicers who ignore insurance plans the borrowers paid for (all examples from my cases) to servicers who refuse to even accept HAMP-type loan modification documents - all are substantive, real problems that were not the fault of the borrowers. The deposition was, in the Jackson case, merely an effort to get at the truth of the reversed payment - instead, GMAC admitted to wholesale manufacture of court documents, then promised to fix the practice, then continued that practice unabated for 4 more years.

Most of what we have uncovered are criminal violations - false testimony under oath, notary fraud, etc. These problems will continue until the attorneys general who have formed a task force recognize and confront the significant criminal violations, and will continue unless we have real reform of the servicing practices that emphasize speed over the truth.

Not a single one of my clients wants (or deserves) a free house. What they want (and deserve) is for their voices to be heard, and, for better or worse, consumer lawyers are the only ones capable of achieving this at the moment.

Oh, and it would have been nice if Mr. Whelan had taken the time to spell my name correctly throughout the article.

Given that the author of the WSJ article clearly - according to Mr. Kowalski - had all the information he needed to accurately represent the efforts of consumer lawyers, and then chose to simply write something else - something that shifts the focus away from the actions of the banks and servicers and foreclosure mills, and blames the lawyers for the homeowners for the whole mess, should tell you a lot.

It's been going on for years and isn't surprising.

Duh, it's called advocacy.  What a concept.