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Just Court ADR

The blog of Resolution Systems Institute

Posts Tagged ‘foreclosure’

Foreclosure Mediation Training in Kane County a Success

Just Court ADR, December 8th, 2014

Kane training pic 2On December 3rd, the Kane County Residential Mortgage Foreclosure Mediation Program held a training seminar for program mediators and members of the bar. The event was sponsored by Northern Illinois University College of Law and the Illinois Sixteenth Judicial Circuit Court. Judge Downs opened the training by welcoming attendees and providing her perspective on how the foreclosure crisis has affected the community and the court. She then shared the impact the Foreclosure Mediation Program has had since it launched almost a year ago. Housing counselors, legal aid and lender attorneys also spoke, describing their roles in the program and the experience of the clients they serve.  Professor Alan Boudreau from NIU College of Law was the final speaker and provided the perspective of the Mediation Program. Professor Boudreau explained how the program’s service providers interact and how the role of the mediator fits into the larger foreclosure picture. All of the presenters remained on-hand for a panel discussion. (more…)

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.

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…)

Be Mindful of the Sunk-Cost Bias Trap

Just Court ADR, June 18th, 2014

Just the other day, I learned the term “sunk-cost bias” and immediately thought of the mortgage foreclosure work that I do. The term was new to me, but the concept was not: sunk-cost bias describes why it’s so hard for us to walk away from something and cut our losses (and explains why I spent 3 hours waiting in line for the Indiana Jones ride at Disneyland). With sunk-cost bias, our minds go through a process of telling us that we should hold on because otherwise the time, money and energy already invested would be a waste, even when such a decision is irrational and just sinks us further in the hole. The concept can have very real implications for more serious life choices, like whether or not to remain in a home once in foreclosure. (more…)

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