Court Honors Attorney for Coordinating Landmark Foreclosure Program

PHILADELPHIA, Jan. 22 – Last year's mortgage meltdown didn't catch members of Philadelphia's legal community off guard. They were prepared and ready. The First Judicial District's Residential Mortgage Foreclosure Diversion Project – the culmination of years of reform efforts by members of the bench, the bar and the Sheriff's office – is now a national model for court-supervised reconciliation of foreclosures of homeowner-occupied properties. Today, the First Judicial District honored one of the first attorneys to participate in the Program by acting as a judge pro tem and recruiting others to meet the program's growing demand.

 

Kenneth J. Fleisher, Esq., chair of the Real Estate Department at Zarwin Baum DeVito Kaplan Schaer Toddy P.C., was awarded a 2008 Pro Bono Publico Award for his outstanding contribution to the First Judicial District through his commitment to providing quality pro bono legal services to Philadelphia's underprivileged citizens.

 

“I first became involved in the predecessor to this program when I was chair of the Real Property Section of the Philadelphia Bar,” recalls Fleisher. “Judge Annette Rizzo was deeply concerned about the rising foreclosure rates and how the judicial system was addressing the issue. She created an ad hoc committee consisting of members of the lenders' bar, consumer attorneys, Sheriff John Green and his counsel, all of whom worked tirelessly for over four years to develop new rules and new procedures to make the foreclosure process quicker, cheaper and more fair to both sides.”

 

When the mortgage crisis deepened and drew national attention in Spring 2008, many of the ideas generated by this ad hoc committee were quickly adopted and transformed into the Foreclosure Diversion Project, thanks to strong support from then- President Judge C. Darnell Jones and numerous other administrative and supervising judges of the Philadelphia bench. Judge Rizzo asked Fleisher to coordinate the judges pro tem who would sit as conciliators on the hundreds of cases flowing through the program each month, recruiting senior attorneys with over 15 years experience to volunteer their expertise to help residential homeowners and their lenders find alternatives to foreclosure.

 

“The response has been utterly remarkable,” said Fleisher. “Senior members of the Philadelphia bar stepped up big-time, as did several attorneys from surrounding counties who came to Philadelphia once or twice a month to act as judges pro tem. Because of their hard work and the equally hard work and devotion of the volunteer debtors’ attorneys, the housing counselors, Judge Rizzo and her colleagues on the Court and the court staff whose organizational skills and patience are unparalleled, the program is now quite literally a model for the country.”

 

Pennsylvania Senators Robert P. Casey and Arlen Specter have come to Philadelphia to conduct hearings and discussion groups focused on the program to learn more about it   and to determine how and whether the federal government can expand upon its success. Several states, including neighboring New Jersey, have instituted or plan to put in place similar homeowners’ mortgage foreclosure programs.

 

About the Foreclosure Diversion Project: The project covers all residential, homeowner-occupied mortgage foreclosures filed in Philadelphia County. Parties involved in the foreclosure attend a conciliation conference with a judge pro tempore appointed by the Court, where homeowners are represented by private counsel, by someone from Philadelphia VIP or a similar organization, or by a volunteer attorney from the Bar. Homeowners are also assigned a housing counselor who meets with the homeowner, reviews the household finances and makes recommendations about how the defaulted loan could be adjusted, restructured, or repaid, wherever possible. The judge pro tem attempts to have the parties reach an amicable resolution, whether a restructured loan, a lump sum payment or, sometimes, a “graceful exit” from the property.

 

About Zarwin Baum: Founded in 1960, Zarwin Baum DeVito Kaplan Schaer Toddy P.C. is a full-service Philadelphia-based law firm with offices in Bethlehem, Pa., and Jersey City, and Marlton, NJ.