The NLADA/NCLC John G. Brooks Consumer Law Fellowships have been terrific successes beyond all expectations and we hope to award more fellowships some time in the future. For now, however, we unfortunately have exhausted the original funds allocated to the program and there is no new round of applications expected to take place this year.
The Brooks Fellowships are funded out of proceeds from the settlements of high impact nationwide class actions brought by the National Consumer Law Center and others to fight racial discrimination that allegedly occured when consumers financed cars through dealers. The Brooks Fellowships are only a small part of the remedies approved in these cases, but through the settlements a total of $1,400,000.00 has been allocated through the NLADA to support the program. As a result, twenty five two-year fellowships, spread out over four years, have been funded. The fellowships have resulted in outstanding work. In keeping with the ultimate purpose of the Brooks Fellowships, the amount of consumer law practice in legal services is increasing and programs are making long term commitments to high impact consumer law work for the years to come. Given the foreclosure crisis and the increasing sweep of predatory lending, this is occuring none too soon.
We of course have hopes that funding for the Brooks Fellowships will again become available. It is a wonderful joint venture between NLADA, NCLC, and the legal services community that we truly have enjoyed implementing. However, our prospects are unpredictable at the moment. If you have any opportunities to fund future Brooks Fellowships (i.e. through cy pres awards, etc.), or have any leads to sources that might be able to provide such support, please feel free to contact us by an email to wogburn@nclc.org, Executive Director.
***
The National Legal Aid and Defender Association is pleased to announce the award of seven new John G. Brooks Consumer Law Fellowships to legal services providers to enable them to expand their practices of consumer law. NLADA received many more applications than spaces available, reflecting the increased priority being given by the legal services community to marketplace abuses threatening the stability of low-income families.
John G. Brooks has been one of the most noteworthy advocates for legal services for more than sixty years. He is a life member of NLADA, a former member of its Executive Board and its President in the 1970s. He is a long-time member of the Board of Directors of the National Consumer Law Center. President Clinton appointed him to the Board of the Legal Services Corporation where he served nobly fighting for LSC’s survival.
The seven 2007 Brooks Consumer Law Fellowships are awarded to:
Community Legal Services (Arizona)
Pisgah Legal Services (North Carolina)
Legal Services of Eastern Missouri Bet Tzedek Legal Services (California)
Mountain State Justice (West Virginia)
Georgia Legal Services
Neighborhood Legal Services (Massachusetts)
The seven new Brooks Fellows will join a group that includes ten Fellows working at nine programs beginning in 2005, and ten Fellows working at eight programs beginning in 2006 (the reports of the 2006 Brooks Fellowship recipients). Click here to read the reports of the 2005 Brooks Fellowship recipients.
Many outstanding applications were received. The final selections by the review team all involved:
New or expanded full-time consumer law staffing;
The aggressive practice of consumer law or systemic advocacy on behalf of low-income consumers;
A significant impact on low-income minority consumers or communities;
A new or strengthened commitment to consumer advocacy as a core priority of the legal services program; and
A clear demonstration that increased consumer law staffing will be continued well after the Fellowship ends.
These Brooks Consumer Law Fellowships are awarded to programs that demonstrated diverse approaches to expanding consumer law advocacy. The goals set out for the Fellowships include assisting both rural and urban communities; helping some projects with a statewide focus and some with a more local concentration; helping programs that receive LSC funding and those receiving none; programs seeking to expand their current consumer law staffs and those initiating new consumer law staffing; plus regional diversity in the awards.
Reports of 2006 Brooks Consumer Law Fellowship Recipients
Connecticut Fair Housing Center
The Center hired Erin Boggs as their Brooks Fellow. A new staff attorney, she handles a mortgage lending caseload including negotiating workouts of loans in default, assisting with foreclosure defense and filing affirmative complaints on behalf of borrowers who are the victims of predatory lending or predatory servicing. Erin works with the Connecticut Anti-Predatory Lending Task Force to address predatory lending issues statewide, and works with other programs and initiatives to publicize predatory lending issues in Connecticut and the services available to assist homeowners who may have been victimized. The Center particularly is concerned with reforming discrimination and segregation in Connecticut’s housing markets, with some of the most segregated metropolitan areas and some of the highest subprime lending rates for African-Americans and Latinos in the country.
Erin has been investigating predatory lending complaints received by the Center and assisting many individuals who suspected they were victims of predatory mortgage lending. Approximately half of the people assisted fall into a protected class due to their race, ethnicity or disability. Erin is involved with the litigation of Town & Country v. Dlugolecki, a predatory lending case involving a man with a physical disability on Social Security Disability. She is in the investigative stage of case that may involve as many as 50 borrowers in an African-American area of Hartford who were snared by a predatory lending “community development” scam instigated by a church deacon. She also is acting as co-counsel with Connecticut’s Consumer Law Group on one predatory mortgage lending case where rescission has been demanded.
Additionally, Erin is working with a clinical professor at the University of Connecticut School of Law to develop a clinical project that will involve training law students to conduct the initial interview of the victims of predatory lending. She also is in the process of recruiting private attorneys who can assist the victims of predatory lending. Furthermore, Erin has begun to explore state legislative changes to combat predatory lending, meeting with many people affiliated with local or national organizations to discuss their expertise in the area of predatory lending.
Jacksonville Area Legal Aid (Florida)
JALA’s Fellows are expanding their existing consumer advocacy by addressing Jacksonville’s dubious distinction as the highest area of concentration for subprime loans in minority communities in the country. The Brooks Fellows focus exclusively on the needs of the low-income African-American homeowners victimized by subprime lenders. The Fellows’ approach to subprime lending institutions ranges from offering to educate such institutions about bad lending practices and soliciting the creation of non-predatory lending programs, to administrative advocacy with the state’s Attorney General and the Federal Trade Commission, to complex litigation.
Brooks Fellow Martha Bolton has been pursuing consumer education through speaking engagements. She also is working with a mortgage consultant to design a home-buying class for low-income people. Furthermore, she works with JALA’s consumer law unit in predatory lending case handling. She has assisted in handling pre-foreclosure loss mitigation cases, as well as other related matters, including wage garnishments.
Brooks Fellow Bill Schmidt has taken on three cases relating to equity skimming and has successfully resolved one in a very short period of time. Each of these cases involves low-income African-American clients. Bill has been meeting with many governmental agencies and minority advocacy organizations.
Legal Aid of Western Michigan
The Brooks Fellowship is enabling LAWM to expand significantly its consumer law work by hiring a full-time attorney to fight predatory lending practices that target Hispanic and African-American homeowners. The Fellow, Karen Tjapkes, focuses on preserving homeownership by litigating cases in the three key areas of subprime mortgages, land contracts and mobile home sales. Michigan is one of a minority of states where seller-financed land contracts represent a major segment of the home financing market, typically charging usurious interest rates and providing many fewer protections for homeowners than conventional mortgages. LAWM will now be able to target a core group of fringe lenders who finance land contracts at exorbitant rates and on unfair terms.
Karen’s caseload principally involves mortgage fraud and predatory lending. While continuing discovery and settlement on current cases and pre-litigation investigation and settlement on others, she filed several new mortgage foreclosure rescue cases, including Tanis v. Ward, Case No. 06-LT-3101 (61st District Court) (violations of the Home Ownership Equity Protection Act and state law). She works on other consumer cases, including defending collection actions, auto fraud and bankruptcy cases. She also is participating in a coalition of Michigan attorneys and advocates to discuss and share legal strategies as well as working with a subgroup looking at possible legislation to address these cases.
Legal Aid Services of Oregon, Farmworker Program
The LASO Farmworker Program employs its Brooks Fellow, Brenda Bradley, to represent farm worker clients in a wide range of consumer law issues that significantly impact them and other low-wage immigrant workers. The Fellowship allows LASO to expand its services into an area of the law that is an increasingly high priority for their clients but that they have not been able to address in the past because of limited resources. LASO expects that the greatest need for consumer law advocacy will be in the areas of predatory lending, notarios, money transfer services and other consumer services and products that target Spanish-speaking immigrants.
Brenda has handled approximately 27 cases related to debt collection, vehicle purchases, identity theft, and unfair and deceptive acts and practices. Several clients have been victims of a door-to-door salesman who has targeted Spanish-speaking people in the community. Brenda is serving on the executive committee for the Consumer Law Section of the Oregon State Bar.
She has submitted comments to the Oregon Attorney General’s Office on proposed amendments to Oregon’s consumer protection administrative rules, and is working to encourage the Attorney General to adopt an administrative rule requiring that car sales contracts be in Spanish when the sale was negotiated in that language. Brenda also is developing a presentation in Spanish to educate Spanish-speaking people about their consumer rights.
Legal Services of Southern Piedmont (North Carolina)
LSSP’s Brooks Fellow, Stephanie Ceccato, coordinates a new regional project that targets specific abuses related to automobile fraud, auto financing and automobile warranty cases afflicting low-income minority consumers in the 14 counties in the North Carolina Piedmont. While representing low-income minority individuals victimized by abusive auto financing and automobile warranty cases, Stephanie also works on the policy changes that are necessary to save these consumers millions of dollars in automobile fraud. Stephanie also expands the scope of payday lending cases currently handled by LSSP, and is involved with larger predatory mortgage cases. In addition, Stephanie provides support for additional impact litigation in all areas of consumer law.
Stephanie represents individuals in bankruptcy, foreclosure and automobile financing abuse cases. She also works on cases involving foreclosure scams, the return of surplus funds after foreclosures, student loan forgiveness, and price gouging by moving companies. Her most time-intensive case is a foreclosure/bankruptcy proceeding in which the Spanish-speaking borrowers speak very little English and were grossly defrauded in their home purchase. She also is investigating the possibility of bringing an impact litigation suit against a car dealer that overcharges its mostly Spanish-speaking clientele.
Stephanie has attended meetings of advocates from other North Carolina consumer protection groups to discuss legislative changes to mortgage origination, servicing and foreclosure; community education opportunities; and common practices that the advocates are combating in their communities.
Memphis Area Legal Services (Tennessee)
Building on its extensive caseload of litigation involving predatory mortgage-lending practices, MALS uses its Brooks Fellow, Craig Barnes, to expand the agency’s consumer advocacy by including more non-mortgage-related predatory lending practices such as auto title loans, payday lending, advanced check cashing and tax refund loans, and other “easy money” scams. Craig conducts research and analysis to identify predatory lending patterns and practices in African-American and Latino neighborhoods, initiate affirmative lawsuits to address the most egregious practices, and increase MALS’ outreach and education efforts to provide consumers with more information on these secondary predatory lending practices.
Craig has handled over 50 routine consumer law cases since joining MALS. He has focused the majority of his time on consumer predatory lending issues, including car loans, auto title pledge loans, payday loans, and refund anticipation loans. In addition, he has done a substantial amount of work on local public utility issues.
Craig has worked on the large number of predatory mortgage lending cases that were pending in federal court prior to his arrival, and has recently filed a major state court lawsuit on behalf of three clients against a large local title pledge lender. He continues to work on Gomez v. Bill Heard Chevrolet and CitiFinancial, a major lawsuit in federal district court alleging the exploitation of a Mexican national because of his inability to speak or understand English. Craig has done substantial research on payday lending and tax refund anticipation lending in anticipation of future litigation in those areas.
Montana Legal Services Association
MLSA has designated two half-time Brooks Fellows to establish a formal Consumer Law Unit and expand MLSA’s representation of Native American clients in consumer law cases. The Fellows’ time is dedicated exclusively to representing Native American clients with a focus on impact litigation, as well as developing consumer litigation strategies on a statewide basis and resources for increasing consumer law advocacy for Native Americans in Montana. The Fellows are focusing initially on predatory auto financing practices and self-help auto repossession among Montana’s Native American population.
Brooks Fellow Jennifer Beardsley is based in MLSA’s Billings office and primarily covers the southern Indian reservations. Jennifer has been handling a full caseload of consumer cases. About half of these cases are either advice calls concerning bankruptcy or applicants who agree to participate in MLSA’s quarterly bankruptcy clinics. Some other cases include advice calls or walk-in clients with questions about managing their debts; collection-proof debtors; ongoing impact cases concerning FDCPA violations, mobile home repossessions, and auto sales fraud; and ongoing cases involving clients on nearby Indian reservations.
Brooks Fellow Dan Minnis is based in MLSA’s Cutbank office and covers outreach and cases in the northern Indian reservations. Dan is has been handling a full caseload of consumer cases. He provides direct representation for clients on a mix of bankruptcy, collection, contracts/warranty issues, installment purchases, unfair sales practices, public utilities and other consumer-related issues.
Legal Aid Society of Minneapolis (Minnesota)
LASM is using this Brooks Fellowship to continue and expand the work of its Consumer Unit on predatory lending and equity stripping, and to expand its education and outreach on these issues in the African-American, African, and Hispanic communities. In 2005, the Consumer Unit served 275 clients. Of these, 27% were either African-American or African-born, and 5% were Hispanic. The Consumer Unit’s predatory lending and equity stripping work has several components, including direct representation, building private bar capacity, policy advocacy, and community outreach and education.
The project reviewed approximately 25 new cases and selected two for ongoing representation. One client was a couple who were facing eviction following an equity-stripping scam. The project represented them in housing court, obtained dismissal of the eviction, and filed an action in district court. A conflict has arisen between the clients, so Legal Aid had to withdraw from representation and find each person his/her own attorney. The other case has been settled without litigation, keeping the client in her home and preserving her $75,000 home equity.
Of the remaining 23 cases, 11 were referred to other attorneys; 10 were found to have no merit after review; and two cases had to be closed because the clients failed to follow up. The project also worked on four equity-stripping cases begun earlier. One is being actively litigated by an attorney in another Legal Aid office, with the project providing advice as needed. One settled previously, and the project has been monitoring the settlement, ensuring the client receives her payments. A third settled in January 2007 after litigation, and the settlement is in process. The fourth is pre-litigation; the project is involved in case-planning with the client.
The project attorney spoke to local law school students about predatory lending, equity stripping, and the project’s work at Legal Aid. The attorney also spoke to adult English as a Second Language students about predatory and subprime mortgage lending, and to an American Indian audience about a range of consumer issues.
