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Calif. Campaign Against Loan Modification Misconduct Claims 3 Attorneys' Licenses
The National Law Journal
October 23, 2009
Three Southern California attorneys have resigned due to misconduct related to loan modifications, according to the State Bar of California, which this year has stepped up its prosecution of lawyers who offer homeowners such services.
"We are very pleased that we have been able to remove these practitioners from the practice of law quickly in order to protect the public," interim chief trial counsel Russell Weiner said in a written statement on Wednesday.
The resignations came just weeks after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a new law prohibiting attorneys from collecting an advance fee for residential loan modification and mortgage loan forbearance services.
In most cases, the lawyers who received complaints were accused of accepting fees but not doing the modification work on mortgage loans.
According to the Bar, Cameron Edwards of Alliance Law Center in San Diego resigned on Sept. 25. Ronald Rodis of Rodis Law Group and America's Law Group in Newport Beach resigned on Oct. 15. One day later, Jeffrey Nemerofsky of U.S. Advocacy Law Group and U.S. Financial Products in Laguna Niguel resigned.
A phone number for the Alliance Law Center had been disconnected when The National Law Journal attempted to contact Edwards for comment. Messages left with Rodis at Rodis & Associates and Nemerofsky at U.S. Advocate Law Group were not returned.
A fourth attorney, James Parsa, who faced interim suspension due to a 2001 misdemeanor conviction for sex with a child under age 18, which he never reported to the Bar, resigned on Wednesday. In recent months, Parsa has been advertising his legal services to help homeowners facing foreclosure modify their mortgage loans, the Bar said.
An e-mail to the Parsa Law Group was not returned.
The Bar has petitioned to place two attorneys on inactive status: Paul Lucas of Lucas Law Center in Aliso Viejo and Sean Rutledge of United Law Group in Irvine.
Lucas did not return a call for comment.
Rutledge has a hearing scheduled today on charges related to loan modification services. He could not be reached for comment, but last month said that the Bar's charging complaint "is completely misleading in the way it states we didn't provide services."
Christopher L. Diener, principal attorney for Home Relief Services LLC in Irvine, was placed on inactive status on Oct. 9. Attorney General Jerry Brown has filed suit accusing Diener of bilking homeowners out of thousands of dollars. A call to the Diener Law Group reached a recorded message saying that the law firm had been closed.
The Bar's 10-person task force on loan modification, launched in March, has initiated 738 active investigations.
