A Few Small Law Firms Handle Most Minnesota Foreclosures

Call them foreclosure factories, if you will. But two Minnesota law firms handle nearly half of the mortgage foreclosure work in the state—earning, one partner says, as little as $50 per case.

Wilford & Geske, a small law firm in Woodbury, handles about 5,300 mortgage cases annually, amounting to a little more than one quarter of all foreclosures in Minnesota, reports the Star Tribune. Runner-up Usset, Weingarden and Liebo, in St. Louis Park, handles about 20 percent of the 20,000-plus annual total.

Although his firm has made as little as $50 on a case, after expenses, "we make up for it with volume," says name partner Paul Weingarden. "It's a systems process. As long as you keep everything on the conveyor belt, the system is fine. Once something falls off the conveyor belt, we lose money."