Word: brennans
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...Brennan, an office-furniture store owner in the Philadelphia area, couldn't believe how quickly and ferociously the recession hit his business. Demand for office furniture had surged to new highs in 2008, causing him to frantically add staff to meet furniture orders and allowing him to wrap up the year with revenue surpassing the $24 million mark - the highest level since his company's launch in 1989. But all of that came to an abrupt halt in January 2009 when the recession forced companies to postpone or cancel office expansions and renovations, causing demand for Brennan's office furniture...
...Think of a bug hitting a windshield going 60 miles an hour - that was what January was like," says Brennan. "We had been going gangbusters - we had our best year ever [in 2008] and all of a sudden everybody stopped buying...
...adapt, Brennan cut staff to 30 employees from 60, and is bracing for 2009 revenue to fall to $10 million from $24 million...
...this week that many large banks and other mortgage servicers have decided it's cheaper to foreclose than to offer more affordable loan terms. Making matters even worse, as many as 86% of foreclosure victims in hard-hit areas didn't have legal counsel last year, according to the Brennan Center for Justice at the NYU School of Law, which released a report earlier this month...
...impediment is foreclosure law itself, a bureaucratically convoluted field worthy of a Dickens novel. "It's a labor-intensive area of practice," says Paschal. "It involves a ton of paperwork." Yet another is the relatively low pay attorneys usually reap from defending foreclosure clients. Melanca Clark, counsel at the Brennan Center and co-author of this month's study, urges Congress and state legislatures to create incentives, like more funding for foreclosure legal representation, that "level the playing field" against lenders and their comparatively well-paid lawyers. Restrictions on government funding for legal services should be relaxed, she says, especially...