With the nation’s current mortgage crisis resulting in unprecedented numbers of foreclosures, a weekend article in TIME suggested an affiliated “emergency” situation: a shortage of lawyers to counsel homeowners in such foreclosures.
And with the situation direst in Florida, the University of Miami School of Law has established eight fellowships so that recent graduates can address case backlogs built up at legal aid groups. Each of the foreclosure defense fellowships is worth $10,000.
According to the article, Florida currently has the country’s highest foreclosure rate, at 17%. Additionally, in South Florida alone, the number of 2009 foreclosures is expected to jump approximately 600%, in comparison to figures from 2006, to 150,000. Further, citing a recent study from the NYU School of Law’s Brennan Center for Justice, the TIME article indicated that as many as 86% of foreclosure victims in “hard-hit areas” did not have legal counsel last year.
The Miami fellowships were established by lobbying efforts from Professor Michael Froomkin as homeowner advocates in general push for more pro bono work in the foreclosure realm. Foreclosure is rarely a full-time legal practice and largely falls to real estate attorneys and legal aid agencies. Legal counsel can help homeowners keep their homes or make foreclosures more palatable and less costly.
Speaking to the potential role law schools could play in mitigating the situation, the article also cited The ROOF Project, which includes Yale Law School. ROOF is not a fellowship program, but also arranges for students to work on local foreclosure cases.
