Foreclosure Mill Company Closes Down – Employees Already Received Training for Life without Homes

The Steven J. Baum law firm held some timely staff training exercises* at the end of October. During this training, employees were encouraged to understand the role of homeless people. The office was transformed into a row of foreclosed homes, and staff applied fake dirt to their faces, pretended to drink cheap beer from paper bags, and hold signs that claim fiscal innocents for their destitute state. Every department of the law firm used the staff training exercises* to understand the plight of the troubled homeowners they made their living suing (pictures here).

Good thing too – because this foreclosure mill (ok, I almost wrote puppy mill, don’t know why this law firm seems so morally similar) is shutting down, all 99 full and part time employees are being booted to the street.

To quote Steven J. Baum himself:

Disrupting the livelihoods of so many dedicated and hardworking people is extremely painful, but the loss of so much business left us no choice

What was the cause of the loss of business: $2 million settlement of charges the firm mishandled mortgages filings, DOJ investigation, multiple class-action lawsuits, filing error-filled “robo-signed” documents, and having a practice described as:

Steven J. Baum PC appears to be operating in a parallel mortgage universe, unrelated to the real universe,” the judge wrote in that May decision. “Next stop, the Twilight Zone,” he said, quoting from Serling’s TV series about science fiction and the supernatural.

These actions resulted in the banks (including the big two – Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac) refusing to use his foreclosure services. Oh well. Guess with no income to pay costs, now he’s foreclosing on his own company.

* By “staff training exercises” I mean on-premise Halloween celebrations and dress up, and by “understand the role” and “understand the plight” I mean ridicule, make fun of, and mock.