Lawyers Sought to Help in Foreclosure Cases

Lawyers responded "by the hundreds to the chief judge's letter," said Sharon E. Goldsmith, executive director of the Pro Bono Resource Center of Maryland, which was asked by Bell to coordinate the effort. "This project has really gone off the charts," she said.

Initially, most of the lawyers signed up to help out at the workshops, opting for the most manageable of the assistance opportunities, Goldsmith said. But after meeting with homeowners at the workshops, many lawyers agreed to go a step further and represent a homeowner in dealings with a lender. "It really struck a chord with them," Goldsmith said.

In many cases, the lawyers are able to break logjams simply because they are lawyers, said Schultz, the consumer protection adviser at the state labor department. "When you have a lawyer on the phone, most lenders bump it up one level to decision makers," she said. "That's been very effective, and that's been the heart of why we wanted to bring lawyers into the mix."

Even altruistic lawyers have to make a living, which is why the foreclosure project will need more of them to volunteer, organizers said. "Attorneys can only take so many free cases, and in a foreclosure, it's not quick and dirty," said Julie Petersen, executive director of the Bar Association of Montgomery County.

The association's lawyer-referral service is one of four organizations that the pro bono resource center lined up to connect homeowners with volunteer lawyers, and Petersen said she hopes more lawyers step forward. "I don't think we can assume that you've got this bunch of attorneys and you can keep going back to the same well," she said.

Community Legal Services of Prince George's County is another of the organizations involved. Executive Director Neal Conway said more foreclosure calls are coming to his office, putting new time demands on lawyers there. "It's created added stress" for the staff of 12, Conway said.

The Charles County Bar Association hosted a training session in May for interested lawyers, said Wilmer R. Ticer, the association's president. He said that six or seven lawyers attended the training but that he was not sure how much demand there will be for their services in Charles.

Those calls are almost certain to keep coming, said Anne Balcer Norton, director of foreclosure prevention at the St. Ambrose Housing Aid Center in Baltimore. No longer is it just the folks with adjustable rate mortgages who are showing up, said Norton, whose organization does work around the state. "We are now seeing clients in our office who we probably would not have seen but for the current economy."

Staff writer Matt Zapotosky contributed to this report.