Legal News

On Lawyers Who Aren?t: CT AG Warns of Foreclosure-Help Fraud

By Ashby Jones

If you’re going to commit to some money-making fraud scheme, it seems there might be better ways of going about it than holding yourself out as a business that you’re not. Like, for instance a law firm. After all, when people hire a lawyer, they typically expect some, uh, real life legal work to get done. If it doesn’t, they’re going to start rattling some chains.

We bring this up in light of a news release issued earlier today by Richard Blumenthal, the attorney general in Connecticut. The release warns consumers about two “foreclosure rescue companies allegedly masquerading as a law firm in Connecticut. Blumenthal’s office is coordinating with the Office of the Chief Disciplinary Counsel in Connecticut, which has filed a lawsuit against the firms and three individuals.

The OCDC alleges that the trio — doing business as First Legal Group, P.A., and Nationwide Home Relief Law Group, P.A. — operated a law office in Connecticut without a Connecticut law license and “allegedly hired Connecticut lawyers who did virtually no work for consumers.”

Blumenthal said, "These legal imposters may have taken $750,000 or more from at least 200 Connecticut homeowners in distress — providing virtually no legal help. Our message about these fakes: forewarned is forearmed.”

We placed a call to one of the individuals mentioned in the release, Nicola L. Zagarolo, but have yet to hear back.

According to the release, the “law firm” took money from Connecticut consumers to do foreclosure mediation — a service already provided free of charge by the courts.”Mediation can be critically important in saving homeowners from foreclosure, but no one should be charged for it under the false guise of legal services by non-lawyers.”

"These legal imposters . . . hit homeowners when they were most vulnerable and frightened by foreclosure.”

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on August 10, 2009 (boomark / email).