Lawyers sell hope. In six years of practice (FTR, active practice of law at the bar of the State of CT), I have yet to have an initial consultation with a client who came to me because something awesome happened in his life. I suspect that day will never come.
I’ve represented clients facing foreclosure. No one searches for hope more than a person about to be homeless. The stress on a parent about to have no place for their child to sleep is unbearable. Clients in this situation uniformly break down in tears talking to me.
Recently, I was speaking with a person facing foreclosure. The bank had just filed papers. She told me that within weeks of being served she started receiving mail from attorneys seeking to defend her in the foreclosure action. A sign of the times, indeed.
A person facing foreclosure should see an attorney. Often a consult or representation can make a difference in the outcome of a case. Even if that outcome is simply more time to move. The earlier a person facing foreclosure sees a client the better chance an attorney has to do something beneficial for the client. Those are words written from my chair.
From my clients chair, her thoughts were “how does everyone know” and “I’m so embarrassed”. Those letters made her feel worse about the situation.
She asked “how do they know?” To which my response was they either got the information from the land records or court records.
Arguably such solicitations are against the rules of professional ethics. Rule 7.3 covers “Personal Contact With Prospective Clients” and the relevant sections read as follows:
(b) A lawyer shall not contact, or send, a written or electronic communication to, a prospective client for the purpose of obtaining professional employment if…..
(1) The lawyer knows or reasonably should know that the physical, emotional or mental state of the person makes it unlikely that the person would exercise reasonable judgment in employing a lawyer…..
(3) The communication involves coercion, duress, fraud, overreaching, harassment, intimidation or undue influence….
The relevant commentary to the rule reads as follows:
[1] Unrestricted solicitation involves definite social harms. Among these are harassment, overreaching, provocation of nuisance litigation and schemes for systematic fabrication of claims, all of which were experienced prior to adoption of restrictions on solicitation.
[3] In determining whether a contact is permissible under Rule 7.3 (b), it is relevant to consider the time and circumstances under which the contact is initiated. For example, a person undergoing active medical treatment for traumatic injury is unlikely to be in an emotional state in which reasonable judgment about employing a lawyer can be exercised.
The rule references the “emotional state” of a prospective client. Few prospective clients are under more duress than those just served with foreclosure papers.
Unfortunately, I did not see the letter or letters sent to the person. She did not have them with her (hence the question mark in the title of this post). The other thing here is that there are all sorts of sketchy companies that promise modifications and representation. They’re happy to collect $3500 fees and do nothing. I have no idea of these companies claim to be law firms or not. I also have no idea how widespread the practice is.
If you’ve received such letters, I’d love to read them. Please send them my way: rmckeen at lttnlaw.com .