Scottsdale, Ariz.-based Phoenix Consulting, offering legal and consulting services to mortgage servicers, has launched a new specialized law firm invoice audit division.
The Colorado State Attorney General and the Department of Justice recently initiated investigations into the foreclosure cost billing practices of a number of law firms that represent a majority of financial institutions in foreclosure and bankruptcy actions across the U.S. These investigations seek to determine whether certain law firms were inflating or potentially fabricating certain costs for services rendered. Investigators are also seeking to determine the reasonableness of certain costs when the third-party vendor company retained by the law firm to perform a certain foreclosure-related service is either partially or wholly owned by one or more of the contracting law firm's principals.
‘The concerns set forth in these investigations go right to the heart of the attorney-client relationship,’ says William M. Le Roy, founder and principal of Phoenix Consulting. ‘Therefore, it is imperative that the members of the loan servicing community take these investigations very seriously and adopt a proactive 'do whatever it takes' attitude in order to satisfy themselves that the law firms that they presently employ utilize only the best practices and that they have never engaged in any of the practices that are being described in these investigations.’
Phoenix Consulting, in conjunction with its sister firm ProSys, offers legal consultants with the skills and experience necessary to quickly identify invoice anomalies. Further, the firm's consultants have the expertise to train servicers' billing review team members (and their managers and executives) how to develop and successfully launch the processes, policies and quality control procedures that are necessary to prevent law firm billing issues.
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