One of the things I am committed to doing as an Oklahoma attorney is staying up-to-date on the law and the different remedies available to Oklahoma consumers. To do that, I spend many days each year attending local and national legal seminars where I learn from the best and the brightest legal minds from all across the nation.

Last Friday, I got up very early and drove to Oklahoma City for an all-day legal seminar called “Defending Foreclosures in Oklahoma” which was jointly sponsored by the Oklahoma Bar Association and Legal Aid Services of Oklahoma.

The seminar’s speaker was fellow NACBA member and Jacksonville, Florida legal aid attorney April Charney. Over the past ten years, she’s waged a battle against foreclosures and in the process became a nationally recognized expert, a superstar among her peers, feared by mortgage lenders and loved by desperate homeowners.

On an aside, April worked for legal aid in Fayetteville, Arkansas at the same time that I was a college student at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, so we had an enjoyable conversation about the Razorbacks and our days spent in northwest Arkansas.

Ms. Charney is on a mission to train an army of foreclosure defense lawyers across the nation to protect millions of Americans from illegal fore­closures. Since 2007, she has conducted seminars from coast-to-coast and trained thousands of lawyers in the process.

“Lawyers don’t go to law school to fight foreclosures,” she said. “It’s a special skill set. Even most judges aren’t familiar enough with this because so few homeowners go into court.”

Ms. Charney said her crusade was born out of experience. Over and over again, she said, in her cases and those of other attorneys she met, she found sloppiness, deception, and outright fraud – including forged signatures – in the nation’s mortgage lending industry. Regardless of why her clients have been unable to pay their mortgages, she maintains that nobody deserves to lose a home to the unethical and illegal foreclosure procedures that she claims are now being used by many banks, mortgage companies and loan servicers.

Also in the crowd were a number of Oklahoma attorneys who are personal friends of mine even though they represent “the dark side” i.e. the banks, mortgage companies and loan services. They were there to keep an eye on the opposition. They were putting into practice what Sun Tzu, that famous Chinese general and military strategist said: “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.”

You’ve probably heard the saying “it was like trying to drink from a firehose.” That’s what this seminar was like. Deep, thick, and difficult to understand ideas and processes. At the beginning of the seminar, Ms. Charney herself warned “This is very dense, complicated work. “If you don’t get it, raise your hand and ask questions because the chances are others don’t get it either.”

Some of the topics that we covered in the 8 hours we were together include:

• How the mortgage industry operates, including securitization, trusts, and residential mortgage-backed securities;
• Understanding loan documents, origination, and the closing process;
• Servicing problems and post origination issues;
• Common law/state law causes of action and affirmative defenses;
• Drafting discovery/motion practice;
• Federal laws that govern mortgage origination and servicing;
• Post-origination issues, including attorneys’ fees;
• Role of bankruptcy and foreclosure.

Ms. Charney receives no money for these seminars and insists that all participants donate 20 hours of pro bono (free) work to their local legal aid organization. This will help me accomplish one of my New Year’s resolutions of increasing my charitable legal work.

Each December, the Bankruptcy Section of the Oklahoma Bar Association (OBA) sponsors what is always a worthwhile and educational advanced bankruptcy seminar for Oklahoma bankruptcy attorneys. This year’s advanced bankruptcy seminar is being held today and tomorrow at the Oklahoma Bar Center in Oklahoma City.

I usually attend the advanced bankruptcy seminar but after reviewing this year’s seminar schedule several months ago, I decided to take this year off. That’s because much of this year’s seminar is devoted to issues pertaining to corporate bankruptcy & Chapter 11 practice.

Long ago, I made the decision to focus my bankruptcy practice on helping regular people who are struggling with overwhelming debt.

And at this time, I’m happy and content to continue to limit myself to working solely in the realm of consumer bankruptcy which includes Chapter 7 and Chapter 13.

While I often deal with many business issues in bankruptcy as many of my clients are self-employed sole-proprietors or majority shareholders of small businesses, I have absolutely no desire to venture into the realm of corporate bankruptcy and Chapter 11 practice.

The one presentation that I regret I’ll miss is “Marketing Your Practice in the 21st Century” by Jay Fleischman, consumer bankruptcy lawyer extraordinaire of Brooklyn, NY.

I count Jay as a personal friend who I’ve known for a number of years through our mutual membership in NACBA (National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys).

And I’ve benefited greatly from Jay’s knowledge on a broad range of issues from substantive law to marketing to organization to technology.

If you’re a consumer bankruptcy lawyer but you’re not familiar with Jay, here are a just a few of Jay’s enterprises that I can highly recommend:

• Fleischman Consumer Law Center
• Legal Practice Pro
• The Untethered Lawyer

I spent the lunch hour today down at the Tulsa County Bar Center attending the bi-monthly meeting of the TCBA Bankruptcy Section.

After a tasty box lunch from The Crusty Croissant, Paul Thomas, trial attorney with the Office of the U.S. Trustee and an admitted poetry aficionado, opened the meeting by reading one of his favorite poems.

Then the balance of the meeting was led by Chapter 7 panel trustee Sid Swinson who happened to be my bankruptcy professor way back when in law school. Sid spoke regarding some of the problem issues that he sees regularly in Chapter 7 petitions, schedules and statements of financial affairs. For example:

• not listing an anticipated income tax refund on Schedule B,
• not disclosing the location of a debtor’s assets that are not located at the debtor’s residence,
• not providing enough detailed information concerning a debtor’s ownership interest in an LLC, and
• using Oklahoma exemptions when the debtor hasn’t lived in Oklahoma for at least 730 days

As always, the meeting was very informative as well as an opportunity to socialize with fellow bankruptcy practicioners and court staff. I’m already looking forward to January’s meeting.

Bankruptcy law is complex and constantly changing. Therefore, I spend a lot of time and resources making sure that I stay up-to-date on the ins-and-outs of bankruptcy law so that I can offer first class representation to my clients.

Last week I had the privilege of attending the 17th annual convention of the National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys (NACBA) in Chicago. I have been a member of NACBA since 1997 and attended my first convention in 1998 in Miami Beach.

NACBA is the only national organization dedicated to serving the needs of consumer bankruptcy attorneys and protecting the rights of consumer debtors in bankruptcy. Formed in 1992, NACBA now has more than 3500 members located in all 50 states and Puerto Rico. NACBA is a rapidly growing organization adding over 1,000 members in the past year alone. Projections are that by next year’s convention in San Francisco, the number of members will exceed 5,000.

The convention certainly offered many opportunities for fun such as taking in a Cubs baseball game at Wrigley Field, enjoying the view from the Sears Tower Skydeck or the John Hancock Observatory, taking a riverboat cruise on the Chicago River, window shopping on the Magnificent Mile, and laughing at a private performance by Chicago’s famous Second City Comedy Troupe.

Additionally, it was nice to visit with many different vendors, all under one roof, who offer products and services used by bankruptcy attorneys.

But the best part of a NACBA convention is being able to learn from some of the most knowledgeable bankruptcy attorneys, judges and law professors in the United States as well as the opportunity to network with fellow bankruptcy attorneys from all across the US. This year’s convention was attended by over 1,400 attorneys.

Every NACBA convention offers a multitude of excellent sessions on both substantive and procedural bankruptcy law. This convention was no exception. Here are just some of the sessions that were offered:

• Case Law Update which focused on recent trends in bankruptcy case law with detailed analysis of cases decided by the US Supreme Court and the Circuit Courts of Appeal.
• Secured Claims which dealt with issues including reaffirmation agreements, negative equity and 910 claims.
• Tax Basics concerning the discharge of income taxes and the determination of priority and secured status of tax debts.
• Advanced Taxes which looked at the use and interpretation of IRS tax transcripts.
• Combating Privacy & Discharge Violations which discussed litigating automatic stay violations, discharge injunction violations and credit reporting violations.
• Foreclosure Defense & Other Alternatives to Bankruptcy including both judicial and non-judicial foreclosures and loan modifications.
• Evidence which focused on the basics of laying a proper foundation for introduction of evidence.
• Business Chapter 13s which was a guide for working with reorganizing debtors who are operating businesses as sole proprietorships.
• Family Law & Bankruptcy which delved into the effect of BAPCPA on the intersection of family law and bankruptcy law.
• Fair Debt Collections Practice Act which looked at abusive debt collections that are present in most consumer bankruptcy cases.
• Exemptions including choice of law issues and the tenancy by the entireties exemption.
• Truth in Lending for Beginners focused on how TILA violations can be used to leverage concessions in mortgage modifications.
• The Means Test looked at the latest trends in the case law on this subject.

I’m already looking forward to NACBA’s 18th annual convention next year in San Francisco.