The Great Recession was kicked off by the sub-prime lenders who fell one after another, taking with them their employees – many of them our clients. It started with American Home Mortgage, where we sued under the WARN Act in Delaware bankruptcy court and then for the unpaid wages for overtime.
This was followed by HomeBanc and First NLC in the south, First Magnus in the west, an others. Later by Lend America in New York and Lenderlive in Colorado, which conducted a mass layoff of its work-at-home underwriters, who were also not paid their overtime.
Our clients at the fast-growing, successful Ocala, Florida lender, Taylor Bean and Whittaker thrived as the others failed. But they were marched out of the building one Monday when the FBI swarmed in and arrested the leadership, several of whom were given long prison sentences for bank fraud. Jack and René settled the WARN action as counsel for the class of almost 3,000 employees for several millions of dollars.