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Just Court ADR

The blog of Resolution Systems Institute

Posts Tagged ‘foreclosure mediation’

Housing Matters

Just Court ADR, October 10th, 2014

Last Thursday and Friday I had the opportunity to attend the Housing Matters conference hosted by Housing Action Illinois, a statewide coalition formed to protect and expand the availability of quality, affordable housing throughout the state. Their annual conference is designed to bring together housing counseling agencies, homeless service providers, developers of affordable housing and policymakers. The conference was filled with valuable information and was a great opportunity for RSI to connect with the housing counselors, legal aid providers and research experts that help make our foreclosure mediation programs successful.

A few of the workshops that I attended really stood out as applicable to the foreclosure mediation work that RSI is doing. (more…)

Introducing RSI’s Foreclosure Mediation Research Intern

Just Court ADR, August 29th, 2014

MJ ScheerPlease join me in welcoming MJ Scheer to the RSI team. MJ is a second-year law student at Loyola University Chicago School of Law who is pursuing a career in appellate civil litigation, mediation, and arbitration. She will be with us for the fall semester, updating RSI’s national foreclosure mediation resources.

MJ has a passion for mediation and a history of studying foreclosure mediation and court-connected mediation programs. Her undergraduate thesis at Northwestern University was a comparison of foreclosure mediation programs in Oregon and Maine and an analysis of the symbolic nature of the state laws and statutes that gave them life. After graduation, MJ received a Master’s in Conflict Resolution from Georgetown University, where she focused her studies and expertise on the intersection of ADR and the law. Additionally, MJ has been certified by the state of Virginia to practice mediation in small claims court in General District Court in the state of Virginia through Northern Virginia Mediation Service (NVMS). At Loyola, MJ is a member of Volume 46 of the Loyola University Chicago Law Journal as a staff member, as well as Loyola’s 2014-2015 Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition.

Here at RSI, MJ will research the changes and updates to foreclosure mediation programs throughout the country. If you have seen RSI’s Foreclosure Dispute Resolution Program Models State-by-State or Foreclosure Mediation Program Funding documents, we are excited to report that updates are around the corner! Also, if you work in the field of foreclosure mediation, we’d love to hear from you, so we can ensure that we are reporting the most relevant and up-to-date information about the work that you are doing. MJ can be reached at intern[at]aboutrsi[dot]org.

Settlement Smarts for Self-Represented Litigants

Susan M. Yates, August 12th, 2014

Julie Macfarlane has written a useful guide for self-represented litigants participating in court-related settlement efforts, including settlement conferences with judges, mediations and direct negotiations with the other party’s lawyer. This could be a handy reference for court ADR programs to provide to parties.

The guide, “Settlement Smarts for Self-Represented Litigants: How to Use Settlement Processes Knowledgeably and Effectively,” is produced by the Canadian National Self-Represented Litigants Project. Thanks again to Richard Zorza’s great blog on access to justice issues for the heads up about this.

Authorities Crack Down on Foreclosure Rescue Scams with “Operation Mis-Modification”

Just Court ADR, July 30th, 2014

Recently, the foreclosure mediation team at RSI has been thinking a lot about foreclosure scams and mortgage modification fraud. Now that we’ve launched foreclosure mediation programs in Lake, Kane and Winnebago Counties here in Illinois, we’ve been focusing on how to provide quality housing counseling and mediation services and get the word out to the public that these services exist. The problem is, it can be difficult to get our message out about the free, high-quality, court-sponsored programs we offer when homeowners in foreclosure are often bombarded with offers for foreclosure help from less than reputable sources. Foreclosure scammers are often very savvy about how to target vulnerable populations, making it difficult for the average homeowner to distinguish these offers from legitimate, government-sponsored programs. As the RSI foreclosure mediation team works with homeowners and conducts outreach, we have seen the devastating effects of these scams first-hand. We are working with the courts to provide better information to homeowners in the form of websites and brochures that offer resources about what to look out for and how to report incidents of fraud.

Last Wednesday there was an exciting development in the effort to crack down on foreclosure scams, with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Federal Trade Commission and the attorneys general of 15 states, including Illinois, suing alleged mortgage foreclosure scammers in what is being called “Operation Mis-Modification.” (more…)

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