ALSO INSIDE

CHABON ON BIG STAR

THE
THE WOMAN WHO
GADFLYED SARAH
PALIN OUT OF ALASKA
ANTARCTICA
MAGAZINE A DETERMINED MAN
ON A VERY LONG
PILGRIMAGE
MATTHEW KLAM VISITS
Could this 28-year-old HIS HASIDIC COUSIN
CHIP KIDD TAKES ON
Pakistani American AMTRAK
ANDREW SEAN GREER
playwright-slash-attorney ON THE GLORIES OF
NASCAR
(who learned foreclosure law on the internet)
be the best chance this family has of preventing
a giant, faceless, and inefficient
bank from repossessing their
home, sold to them with
a sketchy subprime loan?

A surprisingly funny
recession fable
by Wajahat Ali
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38 The Panorama Magazine

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Could it be
that the best chance to save a
young family from foreclosure
is a 28-year-old Pakistani
American playwright-slash-
attorney who learned bankruptcy

I
law on the internet?
Wells Fargo, you never knew what hit you.
by Wajahat Ali

was late when I first met my clients, the Lipkin family, outside my
office. I was very late. I couldn’t believe I was late. I felt like an
imposter. Maybe I was an imposter. I had dressed as professionally
as I could: a sophisticated sports jacket, slicked-back gelled hair,
elegant briefcase. My straightened posture exuded the charismatic
confidence of a seasoned attorney. In my mind, at least.
I extended a hand and introduced myself to a family that was about
to have their home foreclosed upon. Carl and Natalie, the husband and
wife (I’ve changed their names), were both in their early thirties. Their
three young daughters were with them, wilting in the heat of the
parking lot. They met me with open smiles, even though they had just
driven ninety minutes from Sacramento on a scorching summer day.
I invited them in.
I was hoping they would never guess that despite being a licensed
attorney two years out of law school, I was utterly paralyzed with
fear—and earnestly praying to Allah that my potential clients were not
about to call me out as an incompetent charlatan, punch me in the face,
storm out of the office, and call the state bar seeking to disqualify me.
I was the guy who was going to save these people from being
evicted from their own home? Who was I kidding?
In reality, “my law office” was actually my friend’s office, which
he’d lent to me so that I could meet these clients. The classy jacket had
been purchased at a clearance sale in an outlet store at the Great Mall
in Milpitas. The gel was the last remnant of a decaying and potentially
expired bottle I’d probably had since college but never found the
opportunity to use. The suitcase was a gift from my relatives in
Pakistan—who, much like the rest of my family, were thoroughly
shocked that I had passed the bar exam and become a licensed attorney.
My business cards had been printed for free by Vistaprint, and despite
Photos by Jackson Solway
The Panorama Magazine 39
MagazineDE7_1119_FINAL-CORRECTED_v2.qxd:Layout 1
having a professional front side featuring my
name in bold letters and the words ATTORNEY
AT LAW, the back side glared BUSINESS CARDS
I
ARE FREE AT WWW.VISTAPRINT.COM!
Game over. I was doomed.
t wasn’t supposed to be this way. In 2007
I graduated from UC Davis School of
Law, a reputable institution that ranks in
the top forty of the inexplicably influential
U.S. News & World Report annual school
ranking. According to my Property profes-
sor, students who graduate from top-forty
law schools are bred to “find a comfortable
desk job, most likely in a corporation, and
make a nice income without really having to
get their hands dirty.” The old saying goes
that the A students become the professors,
the B students find jobs in government or
corporate law, and the C students end up
making all the money.
But given the economy, this conventional
wisdom was out the window. Instead of being
employed at all, like thousands of others who
were unlucky enough to graduate law school
in 2007, I ended up in my old bedroom,
sharing the family home with my parents and
my grandmother.
Despite being thoroughly emasculating
for a twenty-eight-year-old, living at home
certainly has its benefits. You never have to
cook, given that your mother, a culinary Jedi
Knight, makes fresh Pakistani food every
night. You avoid doing the laundry and the
dishes, because your father has a “specific
system” that only he has mastered. Also,
you have your own personal “prayer factory”
in the form of a very pious grandmother,
who constantly sends duaas and blessings
your way—and reminds you nonstop that the
only reason she’s still living is to see you
married and with kids. And for a solo
attorney without any money, home can
also serve as a convenient and rent-free
law office.
After passing the bar, I immediately
started scouring the internet for any job
even tangentially related to law. I applied for
legal-secretary positions, legal-assistant jobs
designed for nineteen-year-old college stu-
dents, unpaid internships at shady start-ups,
even senior legal-counsel positions at corpo-
rations requiring a minimum of ten years’
experience. I shamelessly claimed, as one of
my qualifications, “worldly wisdom that com-
pensates for lack of actual legal experience.”
I was denied by every recruiting center.
Wahajat Ali’s first play, The Domestic Crusaders,
recently opened at the Nuyorican Theater in New York
City. He lives and practices law in Fremont, California.
40 The Panorama Magazine
12/28/09 11:04 AM Page 40
Dejected, I lapsed into my innate South
Asian melodrama. I made the following dec-
larations: “My life is shameful. I’m a grown-
ass man, thoroughly qualified, who just got
denied a menial job at a small law firm. If I
was a samurai in feudal Japan, I would have
to harakiri myself out of dishonor and
shame.”
“Well, you’re no samurai,” replied my
mother, “and you’re not in feudal Japan.
You’re Pakistani and you’re living at home.
So be quiet, eat your daal and naan, and after-
ward go get some hara dhaniya, pyaaz,
tamatar, and Lactaid milk from Food 4 Less.”
My mother is the world’s second-bluntest
instrument, preceded only by my father.
Tired of being rejected, I decided to
venture forth and learn the law on my own.
It didn’t take a genius to figure out we were
heading toward a full-blown recession; a
South Asian attorney, who’d cornered the
niche market of “the Pakistani American
attorney” years ago, told me to learn how to
file Chapter 7 and Chapter 13 bankruptcies,
which were the bread and butter of solo
attorneys trying to survive. And so off I
went to Google.
I typed in “Chapter 7 and Chapter 13
bankruptcy guides” and found the trusted
and respected Nolo legal guides for less than
thirty dollars apiece. These guides are manna
from heaven for aspiring attorneys; they
ostensibly teach the layman all the funda-
mentals of how to “do it yourself ” so you
won’t have to spend money on people like me,
but it turns out they’re just as useful to law-
school graduates living with their parents.
I devoured every bankruptcy book I
could find, and then turned to my associate
legal counsel, Google, for more (free) infor-
mation on bankruptcy law. Somewhere along
the way I read an article predicting a rise in
foreclosures due to the disastrous economy,
and realized the rate of Chapter 13 bankrupt-
cies was going to increase exponentially as
people desperately tried to save their homes.
I also discovered that agents and brokers
who’d made hundreds of thousands in the
once booming but now hemorrhaging “loan
refinancing market” had magically trans-
formed into “loan-modification consultants.”
So the subprime-mortgage brokers who had
actively preyed on unsophisticated people by
convincing them to sign “too good to be
true” loans—which later defaulted, thereby
capsizing the housing market—were now de-
manding more money from these same clients
in order to modify their loans and allow them
to avoid pending foreclosures.
Despite being equipped with some—
some—knowledge, I shared the quintessential
trait of all young attorneys: unrelenting, para-
lyzing fear. It overwhelms everything we do
and contaminates the first two to three years
of our law jobs. The thought process goes
something like this: “I know nothing. How
the hell did I get this degree? How the hell
did I pass the bar? Law school didn’t teach
me anything. Do my employers know I’m in-
competent? How long can I fake this before
they figure it out? Are my peers like this?
How come everyone else knows what they’re
doing? What if I never learn? What happens
if I get fired or fail? Will I get disbarred? I bet
I’ll get disbarred! Damn, I’m getting disbarred!
Please, God, don’t let me get disbarred.”
I had all these thoughts as the Lipkin
family sat on my friend’s office couch and told
me that they were about to lose their home.
These people trusted me more than I trusted
myself. God help us both.
“M
TH E L I P KI NS:
F OR E CL OSI NG TH E
AME R ICAN DRE AM
an, if you can keep me from
getting foreclosed, I will
personally pimp out your pretty
ride over there,” promised Carl, pointing out
the window to a sleek BMW that did not
belong to me.
“My car is that broken-down 1997
Camry next to the Beemer,” I admitted.
“Get out! A guy like you? A fancy lawyer?
You’re riding in that? You probably have a
sweet cherry hidden in your garage, huh?”
I just nodded my head to satiate his
fantasy, knowing full well the only thing in
my garage was my comic-book collection
from fifth grade.
Carl has been infatuated with cars since
childhood. He loves the way they look, the
way they feel, the way they move. Miserable
as a stockbroker, Carl quit eight years ago
and used all his savings to invest in his first
business, a luxury-car detailing service.
“He’s obsessed with cars,” Natalie said.
“He wants to make them fast and pretty.”
Although not technically married, Carl
and Nancy refer to one another as husband
and wife, having been together for nearly
fifteen years—ever since Natalie was in high
school. They’re now raising three adorable
daughters—two from Carl’s previous rela-
tionship, and their own eighteen-month-old.
Ironically, Natalie’s previous job, before
she began managing Carl’s two businesses
(they expanded three years ago), was as a
mortgage processor for a division of
Countrywide Financial, the nation’s largest
independent mortgage lender and a key actor
in our current financial mess.
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“Mortgage processing was my passion,”

Tired of being rejected by law firms,
I decided to venture forth and learn
she said. “Really, my passion. When I worked
for Countrywide, it wasn’t anything like
what we’re witnessing now. I was really good

foreclosure law on my own. It didn’t take

at my job. My bosses loved me. I processed
twenty to twenty-five loans a month. But

a genius to figure out we were heading

right when the mortgage business was
hitting its peak, the economy started to slow

toward a full-blown recession.

down, and then everything started falling.
They let me go when I had to move.”
Despite Natalie losing her job, the
move to Sacramento was auspicious for the
family—Carl opened a second branch of his
detailing shop, and they finally purchased
their first home.
“Before this, we were living in the Bay,”
Natalie said, “Carl had bought a house with
his dad and sister. All of us stayed in that
house. My family, his sister’s family. It was a
four-bedroom home. Think about it: two
families, four kids, sixteen hundred square
feet? We had to buy our own place.”
So they did. Moved to Sacramento and
into a house that, as we all now know, was
far beyond their means. But it’s hard to
blame them; the economy was booming, and
Wells Fargo—not some fly-by-night opera-
tion—was offering them incredible terms.
“It felt great to get the home,” Natalie
said. “Our own home, our own pool. My own
master bedroom. My kids finally had their
own room instead of sharing it with others.
I even had a spare room for once. I was happy.

L
It was starting something new—something
completely our own.”

ike many Americans suckered by

mortgage deals, the Lipkins were
given a “stated-income loan” with an
“adjustable interest rate.” This nifty trick
allowed brokers and their agents to encour-
age borrowers to essentially make up any
income for themselves. Carl was given a
loan he would be unable to afford on his
actual salary.
Adjustable interest rates were initially
low, thereby enticing borrowers with a
promise of low monthly payments. When
asked what would happen if the rate
“adjusted” and the payments increased,
borrowers like the Lipkins were told, “Oh,
don’t worry, by that time your property
will have significantly appreciated. You can
always refinance the loan and take money
from the growing equity.”
“We just did what the bank said to do,”
explained Natalie. “Our broker said, ‘Here,
sign this paper and you’ll get the loan.’ So we
did. We wouldn’t have qualified otherwise.”
That same broker was the one who
referred them to me to save their home from
foreclosure.
The Lipkin family contemplates the fate of their home.
On the stated-income loan, the bank
claimed Carl was making $25,000 a month.
In reality, Carl was netting a salary of
$26,000—a year.
“But you knew it was a lie, right?” I
asked. “So why do it?”
“You’re right,” Carl admitted. “I mean,
I knew I wasn’t making that much, but the
broker said it would be no problem, that it
was what everyone was doing. And they said
it was the only way the bank would approve
it, so I just trusted him and signed the paper.
He said everything would be okay.”
“I partially blame ourselves for this,”
Natalie added. “But then again, I also blame
the economy. And I also blame the banks.
Ever since we got in trouble, we’ve been
trying to work with them! I want to keep my
home. I want to stay in my home. I’ve tried to
keep my home! I want to raise my children in
my home.”
The courts have held that the onus is on
the bank to make at least a reasonable effort
to ensure their loans are not oppressive,
fraudulent, or liable to default. This is why
so many of these “stated-income loans” are in
violation of federal and state lending laws,
and courts generally find the lenders to be
breaching their duty to their clients. Many
times, the court rescinds the original con-
tract in its entirety.
But like most homeowners, the Lipkins
didn’t know the subtleties of the law. They
were simply told they could sign a paper and
state a mythical income to push the loan
documents forward.
In other words, they relied on their
broker—in this case, a member of their own
Filipino community. In my neck of the
woods, it was mostly Vietnamese Americans,
South Asians, and Afghan Americans coordi-
nating loans for their fellow minorities—all

The Panorama Magazine 41

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Banks rarely deal with customers in
a straightforward manner, but their ears
do perk up when a relentless attorney
threatens a lawsuit or an emergency
bankruptcy filing.
groups, regardless of race or religion, partic-
ipated in the fraud. In return, borrowers got
a home and a piece of the American dream.
Until the rude awakening.
“In 2008—that’s when things went bad,”
Natalie said. “The market for cars started
going down, and almost overnight we lost 50
percent of our income. At the same time, the
interest rate adjusted, and we were paying
nearly $4,100 a month on our loans.”
Their home, meanwhile, which was orig-
inally valued at $585,000, had depreciated
severely in three scant years. It was now
essentially worthless at $270,000.
“We didn’t know what to do,” Natalie
said. “We couldn’t make the payments. The
banks would call us all the time, asking
‘Have you been able to make your payments?
Why not? When will you make the pay-
ments?’ We wanted to keep our home! We
really tried to do everything. But the banks,
oh my goodness, you get the runaround!”
After they realized they couldn’t make
the payments, Carl and Natalie first tried
for a loan modification. They completed an
42 The Panorama Magazine
12/28/09 11:04 AM Page 42
application with the bank over the phone.
That was denied; the bank told them to try
the HOPE for Homeowners program. They
applied, and were denied. The bank told the
Lipkins they should have done a manual
entry for the loan modification through the
loss-mitigation department.
“You never get the same person twice,”
Natalie said. “It’s never the same person
when you call back. Then someone calculates
the numbers wrong. Someone else gets their
information wrong. They’re not on the ball
on their side—that’s what makes it so frus-
trating. I’ll fax them something, and I won’t
know they didn’t receive it even though I
got an ‘okay’ from my fax. They don’t even
bother telling you—ever. So then they close
my file, and I start all over again.”
That’s when they hired their first attor-
ney. On the radio, Natalie heard about a
law group that did loan modification. She
Googled the law group and didn’t find any
complaints. They hired them.
“This frickin’ guy!” Carl exploded. “I
gave him sixty-five hundred dollars! And you
know what he did? You know what I got for
sixty-five hundred dollars? He foreclosed my
home! He did nothing. He wouldn’t even
return my calls! Not one call!”
By this time, Carl began eyeballing me
with suspicion.
“Hey… do you know what you’re
doing?” he asked. “I mean, are you just going
to take our money and do nothing?”
My paranoid and terrified mind went
into fight-or-flight mode. I pictured Carl
lunging for my jugular, his mind clouded
by berserker rage as he imagined me as the
attorney who had defrauded him. I scanned
my friend’s office for a weapon I could use to
defend myself, but noticed only a bowl of
wasabi peas. I thought perhaps I could
quickly fling a pea into his eye, temporarily
blinding him, if he took the offensive.
Thankfully, his wife calmed him down,
and the pea ended up in my mouth.
Sadly, though, the Lipkins’ tale of being
thoroughly screwed by unethical attorneys
preying on desperate clients is all too
common. The State Bar of California has
released several “ethics alerts” reminding
attorneys of their professional responsibili-
ties and of the appropriate way to deal with
clients in default. The Recorder, a legal
newspaper, had a cover feature on the most
notorious offenders, who bilked clients out
of millions and did nothing as their homes
went into default, were foreclosed, and then
sold on the steps of their local courthouse.
If you recall, young attorneys are some
of the most terrified, neurotic specimens on
Earth—paralyzed by the fear of being
disbarred at a moment’s notice for their rank
incompetence. Anticipating such severe
penalties, I had read every single ethics alert,
researched the California Civil Code, talked
to seasoned attorneys, and called the State
Bar Ethics Hotline three times, asking them
every hypothetical question I could imagine.
After the third call, the patient research
assistant said, “I think you can relax.”
And so I exhaled, looked Carl in the eye,
and in my most professional “adult voice”
launched my rehearsed—but very sincere—
spiel, which I reiterated at least twelve times
throughout the one-hour-forty-five-minute
interview.
I assured him that I was not a sleazy
attorney solely after their money. That I was
not corrupt or unethical. I told him I wanted
my name to mean something. Ethically, I
could not guarantee them results. No attor-
ney, I said, can guarantee a result—that
would be against the California Rules of
Professional Conduct. But I assured them
that I would try my utmost—that I would
fight to save their home. I was not a scrooge,
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I told them; you can see how affordable my
rate is for this service. I am not just after
your money. I want to help you and your
family keep your home. Okay?
There was a lengthy pause.
“Okay, I believe you,” replied Carl, after
that uncomfortable eternity. “I’m sorry about
earlier. I just, you know, it’s stressful. But
let’s get started. You want the check now?
Do I need to sign an agreement?”
Whenever a client signs an attorney-
client retainer agreement and hands a young
attorney a check, it always feels like the first
time a pretty girl told you that you were
actually not hideous. It shocks the senses.
It is absolutely awesome and unbelievable.
We were officially in the business of
saving the Lipkins’ home. They brought over
all their financial information, their pay stubs
and monthly mortgage statements, but they
were missing key loan documents and tax
returns reflecting the fraudulent stated
income. The foreclosure was scheduled for
Friday. It was now Tuesday, 5:46 p.m. I had
two days to prepare a legal-demand letter,
review their finances, guide them in writing
a hardship letter, create a loan-modification
package, and get them to a paralegal who
would prepare an emergency bankruptcy
petition just in case the bank didn’t flinch.
A family about to lose their home. A
legitimate check in my hand. Actual clients
who had voluntarily agreed to let me repre-
sent them. And a trustee sale in two days.
I closed my eyes. I said a prayer. I
exhaled. I opened my eyes.
And in front of me there stood a shit-
covered bear waiting to wrestle. This was
what a battle with a billion-dollar bank
would be: a fight with a creature far bigger
than I, and covered in feces.
“ON MY SIGNAL ,
U NL EASH HEL L !”:
F
THE FI RST DAY
OF BATTL E
rom the pompous bravado exhibited
by most young hotshot attorneys, the
layman might assume that we go to
sleep at night having orgasms thinking
about our awesomeness. The brutal reality is
that most of us bathe ourselves in ulcer-in-
ducing anxiety as we curl up under our
blankets, staring at the ceiling.
It was Wednesday morning, and I had
two days to save a family from losing their
home. There was no Rocky music playing in
the background, no self-assuring voice of
confidence, no verbal fellatio—nothing.
12/28/09 11:04 AM Page 43
After receiving billions of dollars from
the government to help struggling home-
owners, Wells Fargo turned around and
offered loan modifications to a whopping
6 percent of their borrowers.
There was only the overwhelming sense
of dread.
Dealing with the banks to suspend your
foreclosure date and secure a proper loan
modification is akin to repeatedly ramming
your head into a brick wall in the hopes that
it will eventually break. Before coming to me
in utter desperation, the Lipkins, like so
many Americans, tried in vain to negotiate
with their bank directly. They were told that
a “negotiator” had been assigned to their file
and was “reviewing it.” Trying to reach this
mythical negotiator by phone proved more
difficult than finding Bigfoot. On call after
call, the Lipkins were told that the negotia-
tor would be in touch by July 21—the date,
coincidentally, of their foreclosure sale.
I informed the Lipkins that the bank was
simply using a delay tactic: no negotiator
was assigned, and no one would ever call.
They were flabbergasted that Wells Fargo
would lie to them.
But Wells Fargo is a real piece of work.
The Obama administration recently blasted
the bank by name as being one of the major
lenders lagging behind on their promise to
help homeowners keep their properties.
After receiving billions of dollars from the
government to help struggling homeowners,
Wells Fargo turned around and offered loan
modifications to a whopping 6 percent of their
borrowers.
At least the executives of the bank were
enjoying the fruits of foreclosure. The L.A.
Times broke the news that one of Wells
Fargo’s senior vice presidents responsible for
overseeing foreclosed commercial properties
kept a swanky $12 million foreclosed Malibu
home off the market so that he could use it as
a weekend getaway. The previous owners,
who lost their fortune to Bernie Madoff, saw
their family home turned into a beach-party
house. Wells Fargo fired the vice president
and issued a public apology. But the Lipkins,
like so many families in America, were
denied the courtesy of a phone call.
My law degree and license to practice,
however, gave me considerable leverage.
Banks rarely deal with customers in a
straightforward manner, but their ears do
perk up when an attorney threatens a lawsuit
or an emergency bankruptcy filing.
In order to get anywhere, you first have
to make a call to the bank. And because there
is no special direct line for lawyers threaten-
ing lawsuits—that would make it too easy—
this means dialing the customer-service
number. “Thank you for calling customer
service. We appreciate your business. Due
to unexpectedly heavy call volume, we are
experiencing a delay. Please stay on the line
and a customer-service representative will
assist you shortly.”
After thirty-five minutes of elevator
music a human voice came on the line and
asked me about my business. I mentioned
“loss-mitigation department” and was
transferred. I waited for another ten minutes.
A robotic voice calmly asked me to enter the
loan number and press pound.
I obliged.
Upon arriving at the desired destination
and hearing the first sign of sentient human
life on the other side, I started in. “Good
morning, my name is Wajahat Ali, from the
Law Office of Wajahat Ali, authorized
representative of Carl Lipkin. I would like to
inquire—”
“Loan number, please.”
“Excuse me?”
“What’s the loan number, please?”
“Oh, sorry. Here it is. I thought I just
gave it to you. Anyway, as I was saying, we
have to extend the foreclosure date. I would
like to submit a loan-modification package—
“Name, please?”
“Oh, Carl Lipkin. So, as I was saying—”
“Address of the property?”
“Here’s the address.” I paused after
relaying it, anticipating another question.
I heard nothing. So once more I introduced
myself and repeated my query, only to be
hit with—
“Last four of social, please?”
“Here’s the last four again. I already
inputted those. How about the address? Here
The Panorama Magazine 43
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A little fact that most people don’t
know is that if you file an emergency
bankruptcy petition, you receive an
automatic fifteen-day stay on your
foreclosure. It’s a borrower’s Hail Mary.
it is.” I mentioned the address.
There was a pause.
I begin speaking again. “So, as I was
saying—”
“And can I verify the address, sir?”
An inner voice filled my head with
obscenities.
“I just gave you the address—”
“Yes, but can you please verify it again?”
I obliged. There is nothing more she
can ask, I thought to myself. Just to be safe,
I paused and let the dead air anticipate
any other question. Nothing. Time to
move ahead.
“So, as I was saying, we need to discuss
a loan modification here—”
“And you are?”
“As I mentioned, I’m the representative
of Mr. Lipkin—attorney Wajahat Ali, hired
by Mr. Lipkin—”
“Who?”
“Wajahat Ali—”
“Warbalot?”
“No. Wajahat Ali. I sent you my authori-
zation yesterday. It was faxed. You should
have received it. Mr. Lipkin signed it, dated
it, and authorized me to represent him.”
“Oh, it doesn’t show up in our computers.
I can’t talk to you unless you are authorized.”
“No, but I am authorized. I sent it
yesterday.”
“I’m sorry, but it takes three business
days for information to be uploaded to our
computers.”
“Okay, but I don’t have three days. You re-
alize my client is facing a sale date in two days.”
I
“Yes, but you are not authorized. I’m
sorry.”
t was noon, and I was losing hours. The
bank had refused to acknowledge my
existence, let alone talk to me. Out of
desperation and naiveté, I tried calling the
trustee agent, whom the bank had hired to
process the foreclosure sale. I learned a
valuable lesson: trustee agents are useless in
extending sale dates. They merely do what
the banks tell them to, so calling them is a
waste of time. I had to think. I called Carl.
44 The Panorama Magazine
12/28/09 11:04 AM Page 44
“Carl, do me a favor. Call up the bank.
Here’s the number. Tell them you verbally
authorize me to speak on your behalf as your
representative. Do it now. I’ll wait on the cell
with you; pick up another phone and call.”
Carl obliged, and we waited another
half an hour before he finally reached a
human being.
The rep asked us to hold. She spoke to a
supervisor. She came back.
And then we had a one-day get-out-of-
jail-free card in the form of a twenty-four-
T
hour verbal authorization. We were off the
bench and ready to play ball.
aking the absurdly high $4,300
mortgage into account, the Lipkins
were falling into a monthly deficit.
If the bank would simply reduce the monthly
payments to a fair reflection of the property’s
current value and the Lipkins’ current finan-
cial situation, the family would easily be able
to make the monthly payments, keep the
home, and continue giving the bank substan-
tial amounts of money.
One would think a financial institution
would consider this a viable and wise short-
term solution, considering the country is
mired in one of the worst recessions in recent
memory. However, wishful thinking is not one
of the options on the bank’s automated phone
service. One might also assume the banks op-
erate purely out of greed and avarice—but if
that were the case, they would simply take the
short-term money from the clients instead of
wasting resources on foreclosure costs, ap-
praisals, and reselling a house that had been
brutally reduced in value.
In fact, shockingly, the banks are mostly
apathetic, confused, poorly informed, and
poorly managed. The left hand has no idea
what the right hand is doing. I imagine a giant
warehouse where underlings paid minimum
wage simply parrot a written script, crunching
numbers in a giant database in which a thou-
sand tubes and wires cross and intersect one
another but ultimately lead nowhere.
I called the loss-mitigation number
again only to be informed that they could
not help me, and that I needed to talk to
the bankruptcy department instead. I talked
to bankruptcy, who told me to go back to
loss mitigation, who then told me to call
the trustee agent because they were not
authorized to extend the sale date. The
trustee agent gave me a random number of
some realtor in Arizona who was shocked
that I had been given her number. I went
back to the loss-mitigation department and
asked for the number of their legal counsel,
so that I could fax my legal-demand letter. I
learned that no bank ever gives you their
legal-department phone or fax number; they
simply give you an address and ask you to
mail your legal complaint. I finally received
a number for what I assumed was corporate
counsel, who then called me and asked
why I was calling her. I told her about the
foreclosure; she was sympathetic. But she
said “I have no idea why they would give
you my number—that is odd. Try this
number instead, and best of luck to you and
your clients.”
I wrote down the number she gave me.
Then I realized it was the number for the
loss-mitigation department.
I looked at my notebook and saw a dozen
numbers written down over the span of three
hours. There were arrows pointing from one
number to another, including the numerical
options I had to punch into the automated
message system in order to reach the appro-
priate department. My notepad resembled a
Cy Twombly painting.
The loss-mitigation department finally
talked to me after I used my “adult voice”
and expressed some mock anger. Having
gotten them to agree to review the file, I
expected them to give me the proper fax
number to send over the loan-modification
package. Instead, they came back and said,
“There are two loans on this file.”
“Of course,” I replied. “They’ve been
there the whole time. Both are from your
bank. We’re dealing with the primary loan,
which is currently under foreclosure.”
“Oh, we’re not the right department
for this. You have to call the dual-lien
department. I’m sorry about that. Someone
should have told you.”
“Yeah, you should have told me that
three hours ago, you stupid, incompetent,
apathetic son of a goat-herder!” I didn’t say
this out loud, but the outburst would have
been well earned.
I expanded my Twombly painting and
added another number. I called the dual-lien
department only to discover that they had
left for the day.
I called the loss-mitigation department
again and prepared an angry speech filled
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with bile and witty barbs. I was ready to
unleash it on the poor, unsuspecting
customer-service representative when a kind,
all-American, Midwestern-motherly voice
picked up the phone and started endearingly
referring to me as “Dear.” After two minutes
of talking to her, it was abundantly clear that
this was her first day on the job. My brilliant
anger was reduced to mush, like country
apple sauce. It took her several minutes to
load the file; she had just begun learning the
computer system.
Exasperated, I finally asked—in a
soothing and respectful voice—“Ma’am,
can you simply ask a supervisor for the dual-
lien department’s fax number, and the num-
ber I should try for an escalated sale date?”
She said she would, and returned after
what seemed like ages with both. I finally had
my key to the elusive gates. When I thanked
her she responded with a few more “dears,”
“sweethearts,” and “honeys,” before adding a
“best of luck.”
I looked over my legal-demand letter,
which used some subtle but heavy-duty
“we mean business” language. Then I recited
some verses from the Quran, blew on the
paper, prayed for the best, and faxed the
package. It was nearly 5 p.m., and I felt
like a battered warrior who had honorably
survived the first day. I called Carl to give
him the update and ask him if he’d filled
out an emergency bankruptcy petition, as
I’d instructed.
A little fact that most people don’t know
is that if you file an emergency bankruptcy
petition, you receive an automatic fifteen-day
stay on your foreclosure. It’s a borrower’s
Hail Mary. For fifteen days, the bank cannot
foreclose your house, and you have those two
weeks to either withdraw your application or
complete your bankruptcy. But timing is key.
If your foreclosure is scheduled for 9 a.m. and
you file the petition at 9:05, you are officially
out of luck. If you file at 8:59, then you
are saved.
Just in case the bank continued acting
like unresponsive jerks, though, I wanted
Carl to have the option to file for bankruptcy.
I’d told him the night before to call a parale-
gal and have the paperwork signed and ready
to go, and he’d promised me he would.
“Nah, man, I didn’t do that,” he told me.
“Was I supposed to?”
“Yes, Carl,’’ I said, trying not to choke
him through the phone, “you were supposed
to do it several hours ago. You need to do
this. Listen to your attorney, please. Have you
found a paralegal nearby?” I knew full well
the answer would be no.
I hung up, raced to the computer, and
Googled paralegals near Carl’s county. I
12/28/09 11:04 AM Page 45
found a number, called it up, and heard an
exhausted woman on the other end.
I used old-school ethnic-salesman tricks
to convince her to stay late at her office and
wait for Carl, who would drive over in the
evening after picking up his kids. I promised
her I would give her “good business” and use
her services repeatedly. I would recommend
her to my “clientele.” She grudgingly obliged,
grumbled, and told me Carl had to be there
by 7 p.m. or she was leaving.
I waited at the office for Carl to call and
confirm he’d made it. One hour passed.
I waited.
And then a phone call.
“Got it, Waj! We’re good to go.”
I exhaled. Day 1 was over. Neither a
victory nor a loss—a stalemate for sure. The
package was faxed off to every single number
I’d written down on my yellow canvas.
T
The young attorney and the shit-covered
bear retired to their respective corners.
he next morning, I jumped out of bed
yelling “What the hell!?” I looked at
the alarm with bloodshot eyes. It was
10 a.m. Day 2. Another sleepless night.
Here was a customer-service rep
admitting to me that the bank deliberately
stalled on approving loan-modification
packages and kept borrowers hanging
underneath a guillotine until the very
last minute.
This time the dual-lien department
would not escape my wrath. I called them
first thing, and, like a biblical prophet, un-
leashed a righteous fury at the underpaid
underling.
“Just listen to me, because I don’t want
to waste my time. My name is Wajahat Ali,
retained counsel for Carl Lipkin. I sent my
authorization two days ago and you should
have uploaded it into your system. If you
haven’t then that’s your fault, but you’re
going to listen to what I have to say. My
client has a trustee sale date tomorrow and
he has tried in good faith to negotiate with
your bank for weeks, only to be consistently
mistreated. Thankfully he has retained me,
and I know what I’m doing.
“Your supervisors and their supervisors
will not appreciate me filing a Chapter 13
bankruptcy that will halt and frustrate your
foreclosure proceedings. Furthermore, they
will not be happy to discover the pending re-
sults of a forensic audit being done on the
loan, which will reveal a stated-income loan
approved by your bank in direct violation of
federal and state lending laws—a total breach
of a fiduciary duty owed to your clients. As
several recent cases have held, the damages
and penalty for such egregious behavior is
generally a rescission of the entire loan.
“So, you all have a choice: either foreclose
on a worthless property which has no equity
and has lost more than fifty percent of its
original value, or in good faith negotiate with
me and my client for more equitable payment
terms and receive some money instead of no
money. If you want to play hardball, then
don’t waste my time. I’m filing a bankruptcy.
Now get me your supervisor.”
The service agent didn’t speak for a
moment. “Uh—um. Just… hold on. I’ll get a
supervisor.” Two minutes later, a supervisor
came on the line. Before he could get a
word off I unleashed my next can of verbal
whoop-ass, reiterating nearly word for word
what I had just told the underling.
The supervisor didn’t speak for a
moment. “Uh—um. Okay. Just… don’t file
bankruptcy, please. Just… here—call this
number.”
For the first time I received a phone
number with an actual area code. He gave me
the name of a human being, too: “Brian the
Supervisor.”
“I’ll definitely call him, sir. But I want to
know who I’m speaking with so I can verify
that this conversation occurred.” I sounded
like a paranoid ethnic uncle.
“Sure. My ID number is John X1Z.”
“Thank you very much, John X1Z. I
appreciate it. You’ll be hearing from me soon.”
The Panorama Magazine 45
MagazineDE7_1119_FINAL-CORRECTED_v2.qxd:Layout 1
I called Brian the Supervisor expecting
to reach a wrong number or a random
factory in Chile. Instead, I discovered an
answering machine.
With the scant two minutes I had
before the machine decided to stop taping, I
unleashed my verbal fury yet again, this time
at a machine-gun clip. I rattled off the loan
number, repeating it twice, then added the
last four digits of the social and even threw in
the address for good measure. Then I recited
my biblical-prophet speech, said thank you,
hung up, and exhaled.
One hour passed. Nothing.
Another half hour. Nothing.
And then a phone call on my cell, which
was on its last battery bar for the day.
“Um, sir, yes, this is Brian. Uh, please do
not file bankruptcy. We, um, do not want to
foreclose on this property. Please just, uh,
be patient with us.”
“All I need to know is whether there is
an extension on the sale date.”
“Yes, sir. We have extended it.”
“Wow, really?”
Okay, so I didn’t say that out loud, but
I was genuinely shocked. They actually
extended the sale date! The big, bad, mean
bank, which had assured me nearly a dozen
times that things were hopeless, that nothing
could be done, that the Lipkins should
prepare to move out, had just told me the
foreclosure would be delayed for a month.
“Well, thank you. I would like confirma-
tion of this. I look forward to talking to you
soon,” I said in my serious, sober adult voice,
barely containing my schoolgirl glee.
I hung up and sat down. I couldn’t
believe it. Those bastards had flinched, and
the family would get to stay in their home
and fight for another day.
I called up Carl to tell him the good
news. He replied with the longest “Oh thank
God!” I have ever heard. I could hear Natalie
screaming for joy in the background. For a
moment, the cloud of desperation had lifted.
A besieged family could breathe for the first
time in months. An incompetent and callous
bank would actually review a viable loan-
modification package.
And I would not get disbarred. At least
for a month.
However, out of the corner of my eye I
O
spotted the bear. He was still smiling. He had
plenty of fight left in him.
n the following Monday, three days
after the original sale date, I received
a fax from the bank.
Confirmation of loan-modification package
received July 22. 2:32 p.m. Thank you.
Then I received another fax.
46 The Panorama Magazine
12/28/09 11:04 AM Page 46
The loan-modification package has been
denied. July 22. 2:34 p.m. Reason: not enough
income. Thank you. New Sale Date: August 21.
Essentially, some underling had merely
inputted the income and expense numbers
into the computer, pressed enter, and waited
for the result.
The computer recognized that the family
was making less money than its expenses—
which is utterly predictable and logical,
considering they were asking for a loan
modification because they were unable to pay
their currently exorbitant monthly mort-
gage—and mechanically turned them down.
And the shit-covered bear flashed a
devilish grin.
ROUND 2:
I
ANOTHER DAY
AT THE FRONT
made the inevitable call to the Lipkins,
who resumed their panic attack and
pleaded with me to help them. Thank-
fully, we had nearly four weeks to assemble a
battle plan.
I called the dual-lien department again.
I used the same canned speech, because why
mess with a good thing? The latest young
underling was surprisingly forthcoming.
“Hey, it says your new sale date is nearly
four weeks from now.”
“Right, I’d like to move on it now so we
don’t waste time, and so the family doesn’t
feel unnecessary pressure from the bank. We
would like to operate in good faith.”
“Yeah, but it’s four weeks from now, why
are you calling us?”
“So we can get this over with now and
move on.”
“Oh, well, let me tell you—they don’t do
anything this early. I mean, the only time I’ve
seen them extend the sale date is within three
days of the sale. I’ve never seen it happen
earlier.”
I was shocked. I literally couldn’t come
up with anything to say in response. Here
was a customer-service representative
admitting to me that the bank deliberately
stalled on approving loan-modification
packages. They were keeping borrowers
hanging underneath a guillotine until the
very last minute.
“So, wait, you’re telling me they won’t
do anything before the three-day mark? They
intentionally just ignore the situation and
their clients instead of helping them or
working toward a negotiation?”
“Yeah, um, well, I mean… I really can’t
say for sure, but, um, you know, I haven’t seen
them do it, like, ever. They’ll always wait
until the last day, if possible. So, I mean,
I know you’re trying to help, but I’d recom-
mend waiting a few weeks.”
Apparently the early bird loses both the
worm and its nest when dealing with banks
and foreclosures. My friend’s girlfriend, who
conveniently works in a bank’s corporate
department, told him her bank had issued an
internal policy notice explaining that they
would only delay foreclosures if an attorney
threatened to file a lawsuit or a bankruptcy
petition. This information was not meant for
mass consumption. When I heard it, I thought
of all the well-intentioned, hard-working
moms and pops who lost their jobs, their
revenues, and their assets, and who couldn’t
afford an attorney to negotiate on their behalf.
Who could they turn to, after the customer-
service agents denied them for weeks on end?
Who could they pay to represent them, after a
supervisor told them a “negotiator” would call
them back, and no one did?
I summoned the image of the gladiator
Maximus. And in my melodramatic fashion,
I promised, I will have my vengeance, in this life
or the next.
In the meantime, I concentrated on
obtaining all the signed loan documents from
the bank. Carl had made a fax request and a
phone request for them two weeks ago; I
needed these documents to verify that his
loan was indeed a stated-income loan, and
that he’d written $26,000 as his monthly
income even though his actual salary was
only $26,000 a year.
I also wanted Carl to get a forensic audit
of his loan from a financial-services company.
An audit costs around three hundred dollars,
and it helps us attorneys get a financial
snapshot of what actually went wrong with
the loan, from origination to completion.
When I called the bank to demand the
loan documents, though, they gave me a
number for a RE/MAX title company
located in Arizona. Like me, the RE/MAX
office was confused about why I was calling
and how the bank had gotten their number.
I spent another hour waiting for the right
customer-service agent to direct me to the
appropriate department, where I was prom-
ised that the loan documents would be both
faxed and mailed within the next forty-eight
hours.
To this day, I have yet to receive them.
Thankfully, a week later, the bank sent
Carl a package containing everything I
needed. We sent the documents over to the
financial-services company, received an audit,
and found considerable violations of federal
and state lending laws. Furthermore, some
exquisitely tasty case law supported our
arguments. We were in business. It was time
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to write a firm and potent legal-demand

letter. Three days after the original sale date,
I received a fax from the bank.
Carl was receiving five hundred dollars
a month in extra income thanks to his wife’s

Confirmation of loan-modification package

sister renting a room in his home. One of his
family members had taken over a debt, thereby

received July 22. 2:32 p.m. Thank you.

decreasing his expenses. And his legal duty
to pay alimony had expired, thereby freeing

Then I received another fax.

up another three hundred dollars monthly.
According to the new numbers, he was
just barely making more than his monthly

The loan-modification package has been

expenses. Knowing full well that the computer
gods would simply see this as a net positive, I

denied. July 22. 2:34 p.m. Reason: not

updated my legal-demand letter with the new
financial information and faxed it off.

enough income. Thank you. New Sale Date:

I called a week later; Judgment Day was
about three days away. Unsurprisingly, they

August 21.
had yet to move forward on the loan modifi-
cation. The foreclosure date was still in place.
I called Brian the Supervisor and learned
that he was away on business. I was told
to talk to Lisa the Supervisor in his stead.
Calling Lisa, I realized that she would never
answer the phone—I would always be
greeted by a mechanical voice.
As I stood pumping gas, I dialed her
again on my cell phone, which again had only
one bar of energy left. I declared that I was
calling from “the law offices of Wajahat Ali”
as expensive unleaded gasoline filled my
barely living 1997 Toyota Camry. I reiterated
my hall-of-fame speech and prayed to Allah
that someone would eventually hear it. I
threatened severe legal consequences if I did
not receive a response within two days.
The robotic lady informed me that I
had thirty seconds left on the answering
“Wajahat, I love you!” Carl shouted. “If I
had a million dollars, I would buy you a Lam-
borghini. Really, I would. A Lamborghini!”
And I slurped my frappuccino with a big,
sloppy grin plastered on my face. As I looked
in the rearview mirror, I spotted the bear be-
hind me drinking a latte with honey. He
looked a little worn out.
Before disappearing, however, he flipped
me a middle finger to remind me the battle
had not ended.
ROUND 3:
nurtured and supported by a massive
collection of trainers, helpers, and multi-
million-dollar equipment.
Us lowly solo practitioners find our
avatar in the aging and decrepit Rocky
Balboa, who trains with limited materials,
eats raw eggs, drags logs through snow-
covered forests, and endures persistent
belittling by the cantankerous, mildly racist
hype-man Paulie (or, in my case, my parents
and former law professors).
Although life is not scripted like a formu-
laic, feel-good movie, I secretly hoped that
I could earn Wells Fargo’s respect through

machine. I blurted out all the necessary
information, said thank you, left my number,
and hung up.
About ten minutes later, I received a call
from Lisa. She informed me that the bank had
decided to extend the sale date for another
month.
I exhaled, and kissed my California
State Bar card. I called up Carl to give him
the good news as I sat outside of a local
Starbucks, relishing my victory with a venti
caramel frappuccino with extra caramel sauce.
I
THE LAST STAND OF THE
FECES-COVER ED BEAR
hate to throw in yet another analogy,
but I will anyway: Being a young attor-
ney taking on a corporate bank is kind of
like Rocky IV, but without the talking robot,
the American jingoism, Apollo Creed, and
Mikhail Gorbachev suddenly appearing at the
end to cheer you on.
The bank is Ivan Drago, Rocky’s nearly
indestructible and relentless nemesis, who is
my sheer stubborn resilience. I wanted to in-
spire fear and trepidation in their fickle
hearts. I yearned for them to be shocked and
awed by my tenacity, much like Drago was
when Balboa withstood fifteen rounds of
punishment, thus prompting the now-famous
utterance (preferably in a Russian accent):
“He’s not human. He’s like a piece of iron.”
For me, it was the beginning of the
fifteenth round. The bear was spitting out
CONTINUED ON PAGE 109

THE LIPKIN FAMILY ’S STORY WOULD BE DIFFERENT

IF WELLS FARGO FORECLOSED TODAY.
On October 13, Governor Schwarzenegger signed SB 94, coauthored by
the chairman of the California Senate banking committee, Senator Ron
Calderon, and Senator Lou Correa of Anaheim. The bill prohibits anyone
from accepting advance fees for working on loan modifications—meaning
the Lipkins could not have legally hired Ali unless he was willing to work
months without pay. The legislation is intended to prevent predatory loan-
modification scams from taking advantage of homeowners. But the language
lumps lawyers with brokers, meaning lawyers will be unable to charge
retainers. The bill is likely to reduce the supply of lawyers working on loan
modifications, and thus decrease the actual number of modified loans,
because lawyers can now ask for money only after their job is finished—
successfully or not. This could mean months of work in the hope that
at the end, a client who is by definition a credit risk will find the money
to pay.
SB 94 will, though, impede certain types of fraud. The law would have
prevented the Lipkins’ trouble with Rodis Law Group, the lawyers the family
retained before they found Wajahat. Ron Rodis was disbarred October 15,
and Rodis Law Group is under Federal Trade Commission investigation.

The Panorama Magazine 47

MagazineDE7_1119_FINAL-CORRECTED_v2.qxd:Layout 1
hug him and knock over an older Spanish
lady. In the following days walking around
Santiago we will aimlessly retrace this final
stretch—it’s the way to the mall, where they
have a McDonald’s and a bowling alley—and
none of us will have the faintest memory of
these few minutes.
We arrive at the old city and enter its al-
leys. We’re just around the corner from the
cathedral. There are two sets of stairs that
run beneath a broad stone arch down to the
square on which the cathedral fronts. We
stop to make sure we all go through the arch
together.
I turn to Tom and say, “I was thinking
about Alina and Nora, and they only started
in Burgos, and Martin only started in Ron-
cesvalles, and Karo took a bus from Sahagún
to Sarria, and maybe we did start hundreds
and hundreds of kilometers earlier, but I just
realized that no matter where you started,
right now, before you go into that square and
stand in front of that cathedral, you are feel-
ing the same sense of awe and dread and the
same anxiety about what this has meant and
what comes next. It really doesn’t matter
where you started. You still did the Camino.”
Tom gives me a hug, seems proud of me
for this new generosity. He and I feel very
close. He says, “I know.” Then he asks, “Even
the people who started in Sarria?”
“No, not them,” I say.
We walk down the steps past a man
ALI
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 47
blood, sweat, and a few teeth. He drank his
honey-flavored water from his water bottle
one last time, disrobed, and wearily stood up
from his stool. The tenacious bugger still
had legs, even as his knees had finally begun
to buckle. The bell rang.
I waited a week before calling the bank’s
loss-mitigation department again, anticipat-
ing another spectacle of mind-numbing,
head-scratching inanity and countless
runarounds.
Surprisingly, the underling I reached
was uncharacteristically engaging.
“Oh, we were just waiting for your
profit-and-loss statements for the past three
months and updated financials.”
“Really? No one informed me or my
clients. What exactly do you need for their
profit and loss? And didn’t we just send you
all of the financials a week ago?”
“Well, since they’re self-employed, we
need some proof of income and expenses for
12/28/09 11:07 AM Page 109
playing some dirge on his Galician bagpipes
and come through the arch and into the
square and stand before the cathedral, a
looming patinaed parliament of a building.
Paned windows on the façade give it the look
of a baroque train station. Other pilgrims are
filing in around us, their heads craned at the
cathedral and their pace slow and unsteady.
There are, most peculiarly, a great many peo-
ple milling about who did not walk here. We
drop our things in the middle of the plaza,
let them splay, and embrace. We’re punchy
and dumbstruck. David is crying, and Alina,
and everyone. We sit down on the stones of
the plaza and lean against our bags and look
up at the cathedral and look around at this
group and feel a slow unwinding into shared
numb marvel. We look back and forth, dazed.
We’ve walked five hundred miles. It’s unclear
what we’re supposed to do now.
THURSDAY 16–
SUNDAY 19 J ULY
DEPART: Finisterre 88km (52 mi)
SANTIAGO DE
COMPOSTELA
FINISTERRE
SEA LEVEL
We walked three more days to the ocean
through agreeable terrain.
Finisterre is so named because medievals
thought it was where the earth ended. It’s
their business. And please send us their
latest pay stubs and bank-account statements.”
This news was both welcoming and
frustrating. Apparently Wells Fargo either
really hates trees or really adores fax
machines, because in my experience they
repeatedly ask you for the same materials
you’ve already sent.
It was encouraging, though, because
the bank was now also asking for new
information, and seemed intent on actually
reviewing the financial statements instead of
callously feeding them to their computer
god, which would instantly condemn the
family to foreclosure perdition.
Unfortunately, Natalie had not compiled a
reliable profit-and-loss statement in months.
Over the course of the week, though, we as-
sembled an accurate three-month snapshot of
the Lipkin family business. The family had—
just barely—made a small profit, which would
ensure they could afford reduced monthly
payments to the bank.
I lined up the numbers properly in the
Excel sheets and bolded the key information,
not even the westernmost point in Europe.
The Iberian Celtics journeyed here to watch
the sun die in the ocean.
The sight of the ocean would reserve the
end’s true power, I thought, but that isn’t the
case. I’d initially imagined Santiago was the
real finale only for people who expected re-
demption of their sins. None of us felt that
way. For us, Santiago was an arbitrary place,
the last big settlement before the ocean, the
place where a lot of our friends stopped. The
ocean did not feel arbitrary. The ocean was
the incontrovertible thing that stopped you
from being able to keep walking. It had the
natural logic of a terminus.
But where our arrival at Santiago was
exhilarated and humble, our encounter with
the ocean holds no shock or alarm or rever-
beration. It is a vast gray impersonal reser-
voir. The distance to the ocean is just a long
walk. Santiago is a decreed point; the distance
to Santiago is a long procession. Its logic is
human. The walk to Santiago was an old com-
mand we volunteered to lend new force. We
had affirmed a kind of freedom in making a
choice to feel obligated, in agreeing to endure
through a rite endured, not for any explicit
reason but for a whole secret constellation of
them, by great flights of other pilgrims.
We all have walked our Camino, and
have our other Caminos to walk. Tom and
Alina and Nora and David and I got on the
bus back to Santiago.
placing everything in a strong Times New
Roman, size 12 font so that even an elemen-
tary-school student would be able to find the
“income,” “expenses,” and “profit” totals.
I topped off the package with a lengthy
legal-demand letter outlining all the poten-
tial violations the bank had perpetrated with
their “stated income” loan to the family, and
reminded them that the house was continu-
ing to depreciate in value and that the family
would seek legal options if they were not
afforded a good-faith payment plan.
Standing before the fax machine, I held
in my hands what I hoped was the final
loan-modification package I would have to
prepare for the Lipkins. I engaged in my
customary ritual: I recited a small prayer,
blew it over the papers, double-checked the
fax number, punched it in the machine, and
sent it twice to appease my OCD.
The bear reeled against the ropes after I
hit him with two uppercuts and the final
knockout hook. His eyes rolled, his knees
weakened, he desperately flailed against the
ropes, and finally he went down, leaving a
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stain on the boxing ring.
The referee started the final count.
1… 2… 3… 4… 5… 6—
And, out of nowhere, unexpectedly, a
week later, I received a fax from the bank.
We regret to inform you that the borrower’s
application was denied on August 14, 2009
because his expenses were more than his income.
DAMN!!
And the bear rose to his feet, smiling
recklessly. I swear I heard him say, in a
Russian accent: “I must break you.”
The bank’s lethal jab of incompetence
made it painfully clear that billions of dollars
in bailout money apparently cannot be used
to purchase a five-dollar calculator.
Wells Fargo had somehow not only mis-
read the information, but apparently created
fictitious numbers out of thin air. The bank
had pulled a Merlin, magically conjuring up
an extra $3,000 worth of expenses for the
Lipkins and inexplicably reducing their veri-
fied income, thus inaccurately showing a loss
instead of a profit. I was no longer angry,
depressed, upset, irritated, or frustrated. I
was just confused. How was this possible?
I’d clearly highlighted the total income and
expenses in both the financial worksheet and
the business’s profit-and-loss statements.
I just sat there and shook my head, con-
vinced a team of supernatural ne’er-do-well
jinns were intentionally screwing with my
absolutely solid loan-modification package.
Alas, this was yet another humiliating
scene from the reviled, unending soap opera
entitled As the Bank Turns… And Screws
You—Again.
Well, I was tired of being messed with
by the banks, and so were my long-suffering
clients. I used my last remaining morsel of
strength to shift my biblical prophet anger to
D-5. I laced up my gloves again and stared at
the Bear. We ran toward one another at full
speed. We would meet at the center of the
ring and exchange our final death blows.
This would be the clash of the titans.
The end game. All or nothing.
The winner goes home—literally.
I sat and furiously wrote my final legal-
demand letter:
There is a trustee sale date scheduled for
August 25, 2009. The borrower has already
submitted a viable loan-modification package
that was confirmed as received.
The borrower was informed that his loan-
modification application was denied on August
14, 2009 because his expenses exceeded his
income. This conclusion is blatantly incorrect
based on the information provided, which
shows the client—with the financial assistance
of his domestic partner—made an income that
is above his current expenses.
110 The Panorama Magazine
12/28/09 11:08 AM Page 110
This denial, based on an inaccurate assessment
of the documents, represents either gross incompe-
tence on the part of the Wells Fargo loan-modifica-
tion department or a fraudulent misrepresentation
in order to deny a viable client a suitable loan
modification.
The borrower is now re-sending a loan
modification package with all the appropriate
information requested.
I sent off the new letter along with
the same financial documents and waited.
The foreclosure sale was only a week away.
A day before the foreclosure date, I called
the bank. Would they relent and extend the
foreclosure date again? Was this the end of
the road for the Lipkin family? Had I been
able to score a Slumdog triumph?
I waited.
The robotic voice came on the line.
I waited.
The atrocious elevator music
soothed me.
I waited.
A female underling took the call and
asked the monotonous, routine questions. I
answered them. I paused. I closed my eyes.
I hoped for the best. I exhaled. And then I
asked about my clients’ status.
“Oh, your clients have been accepted
into the HAMP. The material was sent out
yesterday.”
“Uh, what? Excuse me? What about the
foreclosure tomorrow?”
“Oh, no, the foreclosure sale has been
lifted. There’s no foreclosure date anymore.
Your clients have been approved for a tempo-
rary program. As long as they can make
payments of two thousand dollars for three
months, they can stay in their home. And the
bank will be willing to negotiate after that.”
“Wait… are you serious?” I asked, losing
my professional composure.
“Yes, sir.”
“So, uh, there is no foreclosure?”
“No.”
“Okay, thank—thank you.”
I hung up. I couldn’t believe it.
In fact, I didn’t believe it, so I called
twice more and endured nearly thirty more
minutes of excruciating elevator music and
two more underlings, who both confirmed
the news: the Lipkins’ house would not be
foreclosed. President Obama’s newly minted
Home Affordable Modification Program had
allowed their loan to be modified at last.
I called the Lipkins up to tell them the
good news.
“Okay, Carl. You want the good news or
the bad news?”
“Oh, man. Bad news first. Just hit me
with it.”
“Bad news: there is no foreclosure sale.”
“Wait—isn’t that the good news?”
“No. The good news is that you’ve been
accepted into the HAMP for three months.
As long as you make the payments, you can
stay in the house. Eventually they’ll work out
a long-term arrangement with you, but for
now we’re safe.”
“Wajahat, I love you! I love you! Oh, man,
this is great news! Thank you! This is the best
news I could have gotten! Thank you!”
I told him to enjoy himself. To tell his
family to relax.
“Will do, Chief !”
I turned off my ailing BlackBerry and
sat back on my chair—exhausted, bewil-
dered, relieved, and fulfilled.
A family that had been repeatedly ignored
by the bank and told that nothing could be
done to stop their foreclosure had just been
accepted into HAMP. A family that a few
months ago only had three days left before
their foreclosure could now sleep peacefully in
their home for a few more months, without fear
of a trustee sale creeping around the corner.
The Lipkins sent their second payment
in this week, thus ensuring that they’re
making good on their new temporary
contract with the bank. Yesterday the bank
informed me that after having originally
denied the loan-modification package on the
Lipkins’ second loan, they had entered them
into a two-year forbearance program. The
family will now pay half of the original
amount per month. On the principal loan,
they are now paying less than 40 percent of
their original amount. Overall, their monthly
mortgage payment has been reduced by
nearly $1,600.
The bank’s pattern of behavior signals a
desire to enter into a binding long-term
agreement with the Lipkins, thereby ensur-
ing lowered monthly payments and an ability
to accommodate their financial situation.
Everyone wins. The bank saves tremen-
dous costs in not having to foreclose and
ensures that it will receive regular monthly
payments. The family no longer lives under
the specter of impending eviction, the
children are not uprooted from their schools
and friends, and the Lipkins are finally on a
path to reclaiming their home as their own.
And the terrified, inexperienced, snot-
nosed, Pakistani-American lawyer who wears
white high-tops with his clearance-rack
Banana Republic sports jacket and has eight
dollars in his savings account? Who survives
on his mother’s food?
His five-o’clock-shadowed face is
plastered with a twelve-year-old boy’s smile
as he sticks out his chest and rests his foot
on the belly of a shit-covered bear, temporar-
ily defeated. And his white high tops shine
without a stain.