“FORECLOSURES TRAPPED BY A LACK OF LAWYERS.”

“FORECLOSURES TRAPPED BY A LACK OF LAWYERS.” I have argued in a number of posts over the past two years, (for example, here) that cleaning up the toxic assets and bad mortgages would have to be done one mortgage at a time, and that doing so would require hiring a lot of people. Nick Timiraos had an article in the Wall Street Journal ( May 4, 2011) with the headline “”FORECLOSURES TRAPPED BY A LACK OF LAWYERS.” He says: “The trouble began when U.S. banks and government-owned mortgage giants lost confidence in some law firms that handled a huge volume of foreclosures.” The large volumes for a few firms reflected the efforts of large banks and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to avoid dealing with mortgages one at a time. Fannie Mae now has approved 16 law firms to handle its cases in Florida (up from 9), and Freddie mac has increased the number of law firms it uses in Florida from 4 to 14.

I don’t understand this at all. One of the bread-and-butter specialties of small law firms is mortgage work. I can’t imagine having difficulty in finding lawyers to deal with individual mortgages. Of course, if you are still trying to take short cuts….