Feb 16
2012
 10:16 AM

California’s Foreclosure Process is “utterly broken”

The City and County of San Francisco retained Aequitas, an audit firm, to review residential mortgage loans that resulted in 2009-2011 foreclosure sales. The Aequitas report begins with a short primer on California residential lending and foreclosure law, explaining that California's statutory foreclosure process used by most lenders is a non-judicial process with very little oversight. Alarmingly, Aequitas reports:

Overall, we identified one or more irregularities in 99% of the subject loans. In 84% of the loans, we identified what appear to be one or more clear violations of law.

The report goes onto detail the particular types of irregularities and their respective frequencies (full report). The report concludes:

… with so many homes being foreclosed and with so little oversight, California’s foreclosure process appears utterly broken…. California’s real estate laws were designed to address a far simpler, much different market…. California’s hoary statutory foreclosure process is complicated by outmoded assumptions  and problematic ambiguities. It is in the best interest of all—the mortgage industry, securities investors, homeowners and communities—to modernize California’s real estate laws so that these issues are more effectively addressed.

[JML]

Feb 8
2012
 2:33 PM

William A. “Bill” Rutter, Founder of The Rutter Group Passed Away Feb. 2nd

From the L.A. Times Obituary:


WILLIAM A. RUTTER

October 21, 1928 – February 2, 2012

William A. Rutter ("Bill") passed away peacefully Thursday evening, February 2nd, 2012, with his wife Sally, the love of his life, and all of his children, by his side.

Bill received his B.A. degree from the University of California at Santa Barbara; his M.P.A. degree from the University of California at Los Angeles; and his J.D. degree from the University of Southern California School of Law, where he was Associate Editor of the Law Review and a member of the Order of the Coif. As a youth, he was an Eagle Scout; and as a young adult, Bill served our country during the Korean War.

Bill shared his knowledge and skills in almost every facet of the legal profession: as a practitioner, as a law school teacher, as a publisher, and as an author. For 15 years following his admission to the Bar in 1955, Bill maintained a general civil law practice, specializing in business litigation and appellate work. At that point, he withdrew from the practice of law and began his career as a visionary and trail blazer in legal education. Since then, Bill devoted his life to legal education and publishing law study aides and Practice Guides.

In 1979, he founded The Rutter Group, which grew under his leadership to become a leading and most highly respected provider of continuing legal education publications and programs in California and nationwide. The standards he set through the Rutter Group Practice Guides have been imitated but never matched.

Bill also wrote and published all of the original Gilbert Law Summaries, the most popular study aides for law students, and founded the BAR/BRI Bar Review, which became the largest Bar Review course in the country.

In 1996, Bill joined a very select group of legal scholars when the California State Bar Board of Governors honored him with the Bernard E. Witkin Medal recognizing those "who have altered the landscape of California jurisprudence." This honor particularly singled Bill out as an "extraordinary contributor to the California legal community."

[read more] [JML]