Small Foreclosure Firm's Big Bucks: Back Office Grossed $260M in 2009
The Law Offices of David J. Stern has only about 15 attorneys, according to legal directories.
However, it’s the biggest filer of mortgage foreclosure suits in Florida, reports the Tampa Tribune. Aided by a back office that dwarfs the law firm with its staff of nearly 1,000, the Miami area firm files some 5,800 foreclosure actions monthly.
The back-office operation, DJSP Enterprises, is publicly traded and hence must file financial reports with the Securities and Exchange Commission. It netted almost $45 million in 2009 on a little over $260 million in gross revenue that year. The mortgage meltdown of recent years apparently has been good to the company: In 2006, it earned a profit of $8.6 million on $40.4 million in revenue.
Stern, who is the company’s chairman and CEO, could not be reached for comment, the newspaper says.
His law firm has been in the news since a Florida judge dismissed a foreclosure case over what he described as a “fraudulently backdated” mortgage document, and another judge said in a hearing earlier this month concerning another of the Stern firm’s foreclosure cases: “I don’t have any confidence that any of the documents the court’s receiving on these mass foreclosures are valid.”
Earlier coverage:
ABAJournal.com: “Judge Dismisses Mortgage Foreclosure Over ‘Fraudulently Backdated’ Doc”
