Debt Collection Attorney Listing: Attorney Who Can Sign Name is Good Enough

From Craig's List.  The third paragraph is particularly interesting.

We are a collection agency/debt buyer. What we are looking for is a part time attorney to work for us as our corporate counsel, on our payroll, about 5 to 6 hours a week. This is a short term employment arrangement, no longer than 90 to 120 days.

Your job will be to sign pleadings, praecipe for entry of appearances, praecipe for writ of execution, and garnishment orders. Our paralegal will prepare all paperwork for your signature. This is very standard stuff for us.

If you are an attorney looking for challenging legal work, this is not for you. WE DO NOT NEED F LEE BAILEY- we are fee shopping. If you passed your boards with a D+, and you can sign your name, you possess all the credentials required for this job. If this opportunity interests you, please feel free to reply to this email with a brief description of who you are, when you got your law license, and what you will be needing from us in the way of compensation.

I hope that any attorney who works for them will tell them that an attorney who does no more than sign his or her name to documents someone else prepared would violate the federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act.  That statute, as interpreted by numerous cases, requires attorneys to engage in a "meaningful review" of the file before signing documents in a debt collection matter.  Meaningful review entails exercising independent professional judgment.  Sounds like if the employer doesn't hire a competent attorney, it will soon need an attorney to defend a law suit. (HT: Gina Calabrese)

UPDATE: A commenter raises the question of whether the listing might be for a job outside the US, meaning that the FDCPA would not apply.  In fact, the listing states the location to be "Pittsburgh west."

Comments

[Wilma Carter]

I can suggest of somebody who had worked like this before. He just filed a resignation letter when his family transferred residence. He has been looking for a job like this.

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Ranks right up there with many of the debt settlement attorney recruitment ads. Sad thing is I bet they find someone who will risk their license for peanuts

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[Debt collection agencies]

Interesting article indeed! I am very pleased to read this page.

[Nathaniel Copeland]

This is basically the same tactic used by most collectors who just have idiot attorneys sign papers which the CA will proceed to misuse and eventually the only person liable would be the fool who was foolish enough to sign on the paper.

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Apparently people don't speak the Queens English anymore.

[Michael]

Read a great article today in a semi local weekly publication. Local debtor rights attorney deposes affidavit robo signer working for the largest debt buyer in the nation:

"That’s where robo-signers, like the one Miller is deposing, come in.

The woman tells Miller she was paid $12.50 an hour to sign affidavits for those lawsuits. Those documents testify to the veracity of the debts owed and are used to garnish wages, empty bank accounts and repossess property — so their accuracy is essential.

But on busy days, the woman says, she would sign 300 such affidavits in an assembly-line-like process. In batches, she’d sign the documents, the person next to her would notarize them, and another would stuff them in envelopes to be mailed to out-of-state law firms. There, someone would print out a legal package, attach documentation, have a lawyer sign it and finally mail it to local courts like Spokane County Superior Court.

“Did you ever read completely through any of the affidavits you signed?” Miller asks the robo-signer.

She answers simply: “No.” “That was what floored me,” recalls Miller, 35, with a shock of bright red hair. “I expected they didn’t review the documentation, and they didn’t understand how interest rates were calculated … but I was floored when she said she never even read a single one of the affidavits.”

Welcome to the new era of debt collection. Forget about bat-wielding thugs or polite, local collection agents who were always willing to work with you. This is big business, with automation, rapid production lines and little oversight."

More at: http://npaper-wehaa.com/inlander/2012/07/26/s7/#?article=1636112

[Michael]

Debt collection lawsuit mills just don't have the shelf life they used to. With states holding some of these firms to account recently, and the rapid awareness of an ad like the one run above (painting a target for the regulators), Pittsburgh will not make it as the new Buffalo.
There is humor when the collection bar whines about consumers filing lawsuits "mill style" to protect themselves:
http://consumerrecoverynetwork.com/lawsuits-to-collect-debt-vs-suing-a-debt-collector/

[Steve]

Ranks right up there with many of the debt settlement attorney recruitment ads. Sad thing is I bet they find someone who will risk their license for peanuts.

[Larry Silverman]

It must be a joke!

[jen]

If this job really is in Pittsburgh, that's just crazy. A posting like that is just asking for someone to file a complaint with the local bar association.

[Brian]

And presumably applicable court rules would require a lawyer to do more than just sign any pleading put in front of her.

[jen]

WHERE is this job? That "passed your boards with a D+" does not sound like the American version - you pass or fail "the bar", then get your "law license" or maybe (if talking to another lawyer) your "bar card".

My point, though, is that if this posting is in the U.K. or somewhere, the FDCPA wouldn't be the relevant statute. Although surely the appropriate jurisdiction has some sort of ethics rule prohibiting robo-signing documents.