Foreclosure fraud

As if going through a foreclosure weren’t scary enough, now it appears one law firm may be using the ordeal to collect illegal fees.

The Associated Press reports a Philadelphia law firm’s work has come under fire from a Pittsburgh attorney who says the firm used non-lawyers to file untold numbers of mortgage foreclosures across the state and therefore fraudulently collected “attorney’s” fees in such cases.

Earlier, a bankruptcy court judge, also in Pittsburgh, gave the firm, Goldbeck, McCafferty & Keever, until the end of business today to self-report to the Disciplinary Board of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania. That judge says one of the firm’s attorneys knowingly gave the court phony lender documents in a foreclosure case.