Opinon here, arising from high volune foreclosure work where there isn't much room for hand-crafted lawyering -- or for checking the accuracy of the databases that spit out the information that gets presented to the court. Only some of the sanctions against some of the lawyers were affirmed. Some excerpts:
This case is an unfortunate example of the ways in which overreliance on computerized processes in a high-volume practice, as well as a failure on the part of clients and lawyers alike to take responsibility for accurate knowledge of a case, can lead to attorney misconduct before a court.
In October 2007, HSBC filed such a proof of claim with respect to the Taylors‟ mortgage. To do so, it used the law firm Moss Codilis.2 Moss retrieved the information on which the claim was based from HSBC‟s computerized mortgage servicing database. No employee of HSBC reviewed the claim before filing.
This proof of claim contained several errors: the amount of the Taylors‟ monthly payment was incorrectly stated, the wrong mortgage note was attached, and the value of the home was understated by about $100,000. It is not clear whether the errors originated in HSBC‟s database or whether they were introduced in Moss Codilis‟s filing.